Bill Dubuque raises the point in the comments here that new answers to old questions have less visibility than one might expect. (He raises several other points, but let's talk about this one for now.) I think this is due to the following. There are, as far as I can tell, generally three ways to view questions:
- Going to http://math.stackexchange.com (including from meta).
- Clicking on "questions" while on math.SE.
- RSS feed.
The first option defaults to "active," while the second option defaults to "newest." I believe the RSS feed only updates when questions are asked or edited, not when new answers are posted or edited. So there is a problem: a user who browses for an extended period of time may never see new answers to old questions, which means the software is disincentivizing answering old questions.
This seems unfortunate. Do we have a way to change the default from "newest" to "active" in option 2, and should we? What can /should be done about option 3?