Should we approve and/or make edits to update information of teams or players as they change?

Question

In many questions or answers, certain affiliations of players or specific details of teams are mentioned. For example, consider this edit which changes the description of Hashim Amla from 'South African Test Captain Hashim Amla' to 'former South African Test Captain Hashim Amla' as he ceased to captain the team in 2016. The description was definitely correct when the question was asked, even if this has changed over the course of time. Similarly, players can switch teams, meaning that a question about PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic's boot will need to be updated to say Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Should we perform and encourage such update of details that are bound to change over time, even if they were accurate at the time the question was asked? I feel this puts an unnecessary overload on the community members to constantly update such details ad infinitum and should not be encouraged.

Answer 1

I'd say we should make this kind of update only if the post is actively misleading in its "obsolete" form - for example, I don't think it really matters that there's a question saying "South African captain Hashim Amla" when he's no longer the captain; people will perfectly well understand that he was captain when the post was written and he's not any more. There is a small harm in editing posts in this way - it bumps them to the front page, which results in newer questions being pushed off the front page. It's not the end of the world, but we don't want the front page filled up with old questions which have had minor edits made to them.

Of course, the flip side to this is always try and write your posts in a timeless manner. I edit on sight anything saying "today", "yesterday", "this year" or the like to avoid exactly this problem.

Answer 2

There is no harm in updating factual statements in questions or answers, unless such updates fundamentally alter the question or answer.

If a question or answer only needs minor changes to be updated, approve them. If you are going to make such updates, please follow edit guidance and look for anything else you could tidy up at the same time. Leaving a comment with the updated information for others to include when they make edits is okay too.

If a question or answer needs major changes to be updated, do not make or approve them. Leave a comment to say that it is severely out of date. Write a new question or answer, and link it with the comment - it will then appear on the Linked Questions list, or it will provide a better answer. If the old one is so severely out of date that maintaining it is harmful, ensure there is a new version, and downvote and VTC/VTD the old version.