Arqade is unique in SE in that our subject matter is in constant flux. In they last several years, more and more games come out that patch out old problems and introduce new ones. Despite this, our duplicate policy discourages asking cosmetically similar but fundamentally different questions while ignoring that our normal metrics for controlling qualify are totally subverted when the subject matter changes.
The sad truth is well written questions and answers, that were deservedly up voted and accepted, are rendered obsolete or even flat out wrong by the passage of time. This is, in general, unprecedented in other SE sites. Imagine the problems Physics would have it someone categorically disproved general relativity. Thousands of questions and answers would suddenly be wrong, with established scores that can't be wiped out easily. It would take a massively coordinated effort to fix the site. This kind of thing can happen to Arquade at any time (though admittedly not nearly as far reaching)
Our current metrics for determining quality are the voting system. Ideally, users upvote correct answers and downvote incorrect and/or low quality ones, allowing the cream to rise to the top. This system works wonderfully for static subject matter; the answer is correct today, and it will be right in its essentials a thousand years from now. Games aren't static. Patches change mechanics, close and open loopholes and exploits, expansion packs introduce new level caps, mechanics and content. What was true today may not be true tomorrow or a week from now.
What we need is a VTC/deletion reason to reflect this reality.
Whoa, do we really need to delete content? Yes. The whole mission of Stack Exchange is to ask questions and give answers to make the Internet a better place. Questions and answers that are wrong don't serve that mission, and when community members use their existence to prevent new, valid questions from being asked, they become actively detrimental.
Why not just write your own up to date answer on the old question? Because answering an old established question isn't effective. This is different from answering a new question, where all the answers start at zero. You have to compete against established, possibly accepted answers that are well written and were at some point correct. Correcting the answers requires getting enough views to push the new answer to the top and downvote the old, now incorrect ones. If a past upvoter sees the answer, they answer must be edited before they can change their vote.
That also requires the user to actually KNOW the correct, up-to-date answer, which is by no means a given.
Why not just write a new question? Because the duplicate policy is (correctly) blind to questions of relevance. It doesn't matter that the previous question and its answers aren't helpful anymore, the question has already been asked and answered.
Why not just edit the question/answer to be up to date? Two reasons.
One, like it or not, the gamification of the site deincentivizes comprehensive edits to someone else's questions/ answers. If user B's edit draws more votes to user A's content, user A gets "free" rep. It's easy for high rep users to forget how precious 30 rep is when there aren't any commas in your score.
Two, comprehensive edits violate the edit policy. This is less of an issue for questions, which are much less likely to be rendered false by a patch or update, but it's a minefield for answers. Many outdated answers would need to be completed rewritten to be correct. Editing in a disclaimer that "this answers is incorrect as of patch x.x.x" is simply vandalism, and if you're willing to allow that, just skip a step and delete the thing.
Isnt this exactly what bounties are for? No. You shouldn't be required to place a bounty to get a question answered. Pointing a user at a "duplicate" which is concerned with a game that, for all practical purposes, no longer exists is bad enough. Suggesting they then place a bounty in the vain hope that someone will come along and give them a relevant answer is beyond the pale. And if you find an incorrect answer you want to fix yourself, what are you supposed to do? Award a bounty to yourself? Bounty the question to attract views to your fix and then take it down? Is that really the kind of behavior we want to advocate.
Why not just leave it to the mods? That's not what our mods are for, on this Stack or any other. It isn't their job to determine if a question is factually correct.
What about all the rep? Rep changes are permanent after 60 days.
Ok so what kind of games would this apply to? The proposed VTC reason would ONLY apply to games that cannot be played in previous patches. Games like World of Warcraft and Diablo III can only be played on the latest version, and content about these games would be fair game. Games like The Witcher III and Bloodborne have patches, but can be played on older ones. Content from games like these should stand.
How would the reason read? This question/answer is obsolete. The game in question has since been updated, and this content is incorrect and out of date."
