42

One of the things I like the most about our community is that we learn from each other. I love reading and learning from everyone's answers- I have seen things done with LaTeX that I would never have thought possible.

When finding a duplicate or related question, I'll sometimes link back to an old answer of mine and realize that either I have learnt a better way to do it, or the package now provides a different/better way.

Does the community regard answers as a 'snapshot' of the currently available resources (both knowledge and package interface) or should they be updated as and when either of these things change?

1

1 Answer 1

43

I think any improvement on an existing answer is valid. It would be far more helpful to have current information than to have outdated yet functional answers. Even if this means you replace 50 lines of code with a new \usepackage and a single command. The reason should be obvious: Answers here are meant to benefit the community, which is always changing.

You can always include the older version as part of the post, or leave it for interested community members to peruse the post revision history for older code (perhaps suggesting such in a comment).

3
  • 26
    I completely agree. For me, the ability to go back and edit old posts to keep them relevant is one of the great features of this site that really sets it apart from "conventional" forums.
    – Jake
    Oct 15, 2013 at 17:35
  • To make sure that an answer (in particular an accepted one) indeed answers the OP it is very important, IMHO, to keep reference to the version of the answer which was accepted.
    – Dror
    Oct 18, 2013 at 5:01
  • If the new info does not contradict the answer and does not include new code snippets then I prefer comments (even if the answer is one of my own).
    – masu
    Oct 20, 2013 at 12:28

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .