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In regards to this old question, the answer listed is no longer valid as EA sent the site in question a DMCA and shut it down. What's worse though is that the site now links to a cheat website that contains more links that could potentially be malicious given the nature of what the site is now.

What is the standard procedure for something like this where not only the answer is no longer valid (sure it was some time ago, but isn't now), and the link in said answer could also potentially be harmful?

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  • I don't see any links on the site in question to anything that might be malicious. It looks like it's just a blog advertising something but doesn't actually give any information on how to obtain it.
    – forest
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 4:57

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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If the answer is based off the information in the link and that link is no longer valid, the correct thing to do is downvote the current answer (unhelpful now) and submit a new answer with valid information that is relevant today.

In this case, that entire answer is based off of that link being the source of servers. Since it's no longer true, that answer is no longer an answer, so feel free to add your own.

If the answer includes links that are supplementing the information in the answer (such as references to an old wiki that no longer exists), the correct thing to do is edit the question with an updated wiki site or edit the question to take out the bad links. The answer in this case is still valid, you should just clean up the answer.

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    As an additional note, feel free to flag for moderator attention answers with dead links if they can't be recovered via web archives or such services. For this specific question, the answer is not useful anymore once the website linked is gone, so it is effectively not an answer anymore. Do leave a comment as well, in case the answerer can salvage their post.
    – Wrigglenite Mod
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 15:22
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Typically, we would update links that provide the helpful supplementary information. However, in this case, the entirety of the answer is a link, which means that without the link, it no longer meets the requirements to hold water as an answer, and should be removed.

The course of action in this specific case would be to flag the post as a non-answer, and allow a moderator to determine the answer's fate.

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  • I'm sure a backup of the link can be found on the Wayback Machine. Is linking to that acceptable?
    – user143228
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 6:28
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    That would work great in scenarios where the external site provides static information that never changes. It would not work in this case, as server lists are very dynamic - I doubt any of the servers from the site are even online anymore.
    – Gigazelle
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:52
  • Oh, thanks. I will definitely do so in future edits, where this is applicable. Digging deeper, is it OK to link to online archives when the original post is still online (in case of less stable websites/pages, like promotional ones)?
    – user143228
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:59
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    Most definitely. You can have the original link, and then post mirror links if they provide the same info.
    – Gigazelle
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 16:08

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