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I was scanning through the old questions, and noticed few with broken links: most of them had question in the link, what should be done about it? In a similar post earlier someone has prescribed few steps, but what should be done about questions like this or this or this (I found a lot of them like this in further search.)? If it should be flagged, what flag should be used? I could not find an appropriate one in present options! Or should a new flag be introduced for broken link?

Also, I doubt if the user will care about it/will be in a position to fix the issue if he is notified after almost a year like in links above!

Also, are there bots (or something like that) here that can automatically identify and notify authors about it/ delete the question in case there is no response, like in Wikipedia or can it be introduced in casse it is not there?

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Most of Rebecca Chernoff's suggestions still apply:

  • contact the user in comments to see if they can provide an updated link/image.
  • if possible, try to remedy the situation using the information available to you in the page.
  • if it is unsalvageable, flag using "low quality" or "not an answer", or a moderator-only "other" flag if these options are not available.

But we also have a Reopen? Undelete? Close? Delete? chat room where it is possible that regular (though high rep) users can "do the needful". Posting a link there with a short explanation of what's wrong could expedite things. (I would do this after attempting to contact the original author and seeing if you can remedy the situation yourself.)

I'm not certain if there are bots out there to even find missing images. There is, however, a SEDE query that will find images not hosted by Imgur. Images hosted by SE's Imgur account will never go away, so those are the ones to worry about.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you! That helps! $\endgroup$
    – Jesse P Francis
    Apr 16, 2015 at 13:04
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The questions as they are now are completely unclear. If the OP seems still active you can signal the issue with a comment on OP. If not, flag/vote as "unclear," especially for the type of questions you link to (that is low-visibility, routine stuff).

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you. I have limited number of flags at this point and I was not sure if I should waste one on them. What about bots? $\endgroup$
    – Jesse P Francis
    Apr 16, 2015 at 12:50
  • $\begingroup$ You are welcome. I do not know anything about bots. Presumably this issue came up on Meta Stack Exchange though. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Apr 16, 2015 at 12:56

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