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I don't have any great examples right now, but sometimes interesting, but old (say, from 2011), questions pop up in the right column, I look at them and the answers, and sometimes feel like an answer justifies an upvote, a downvote or a clarifying or enlightening comment.

Is there a general consensus that any question or answer, no matter how old and regardless of the presence of an accepted answer, justifies further interaction, or should old material rather be left alone?

I personally think that any material on this site could be helpful for a visitor at some point, so we should strive for the best possible quality, which also means adding to answers that have been posted 5 years ago.

Please excuse me if this topic has been covered before, but I couldn't find anything on the German meta. It might also have been discussed on a more general SE meta.

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Any question, any answer irrespective of how old it may be is meant to be read. If it helped you upvote it, if it was wrong, downvote or improve it. If the person who asked or answered is still around you may also get a response to your comment. If something was missing in a post your comment will help future visitors even when nobody came back for an edit.

You are also welcome to write an own answer in case you feel you have enough to say that deserves another point of view, or if you feel the question was not yet fully answered by existing content.

Do contribute, and do treat any post as if it was from just now. There should be no old, aging or outdated content. It it was we should improve or remove it!

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    We even have badges that encourage improving old posts (Excavator and Archaeologist) and answering old questions (Revival and Necromancer). – Loong♦ Jun 7 '16 at 14:11
  • I already earned the Excavator on German.SE ;-) – Raketenolli Jun 8 '16 at 17:35
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    What about questions that were accepted in the early years of the beta, but would now be considered off-topic, too broad etc.? – Crissov Jun 9 '16 at 8:16
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    @Crissov: those questions may probably best be left alone, or they may be closed according to our now better evolved guides. Some already also have a historical lock to them. – Takkat♦ Jun 9 '16 at 8:49
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On the main site, there is absolutely no reason not to react to ages old posts. In fact, the Stack Exchange model explicitly expects people to browse through the entire thing and upvote what they found helpful. If somebody posts a question that was asked four years ago, it will still be closed as a duplicate of the old one, just to show how timeless the site is meant to be.

Loong correctly mentioned the four badges that even reward poking through old questions, namely Excavator, Archaeologist (improving old posts in general), Revival and Necromancer (answering old questions with noteworthy scores).

Frankly, I enjoyed your comment on that old question earlier ;)

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