Is Math StackExchange aging?

Question

I am just a relatively new user, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you read about the questions with most votes in MSE, you can find that until the $35$-th of question, the questions are all asked at least 4 years ago. Some of them are even about 8 years ago.

Does this mean new questions can't receive enough attention?

One of the reasons of this phenomenon, is, I think, is about the 'hot topics':
Classic results like Different methods to compute $\sum\limits_{k=1}^\infty \frac{1}{k^2}$ (Basel problem)
Some explanation to some important concept in mathematics, such as Is $\frac{\textrm{d}y}{\textrm{d}x}$ not a ratio?; What are imaginary numbers?
Or some 'interesting' results like Is this Batman equation for real?.

And interestingly, some of the problems are really off-topic, such as My sister absolutely refuses to learn math.

Does this mean oftenly, receiving many votes and attentions really doesn't mean it is a good question?

Are our users really focus on wrong position?

We should not just pay attention to familiar topic, or 'hot topic'.

Does it means we should revise our MSE system?

Maybe it is because we have lots more questions these days and so the average attention of problem is decreasing. But I think the number of good quality posts won't decrease.

Maybe we can let moderators or expert users to select good question (for month, years, or etc.?) Somethings like votes shouldn't be the most important.

Thank you for paying attentions to my question.

Answer 1

If you read about the questions with most votes in MSE, you can find that until the $35$-th of question, the questions are all asked at least 4 years ago. Some of them are even about 8 years ago.

There is a positive feedback loop inherent in having a "most popular X" list on any website. It's not only that older questions dominate the "Most voted" list: older answers also have a score advantage over newer ones, even when the newer one is better. Unfortunately the only real solution to this is to remove the ability to sort by score, and the cure is probably worse than the disease.

Does this mean new questions can't receive enough attention?

No. I think it's safe to say that scarcely anyone uses the list of all questions sorted by votes to find questions to answer. Some people use the front page (all questions, sorted by "interestingness", which combines activity with votes); others use the full question list sorted by either activity or age; and others use tag lists sorted by either activity or age.

If you tag your question correctly, it is likely to receive attention. You can improve the chance of receiving attention by choosing an informative title and first line, because people will see either the title or both of those as the summary of the question.

One of the reasons of this phenomenon, is, I think, is about the 'hot topics':

HNQ has the same positive feedback loop mentioned above, plus an additional one: people who have 100 rep on another site can get an "association bonus" which gives them enough rep to upvote, but not enough rep to downvote. I and others have complained on the "mother meta" site that this has negative effects on the quality of some sites, but thus far we don't seem to have convinced the people who matter.

Does this mean often, receiving many votes and attentions really doesn't mean it is a good question?

I don't think I could justify "often", but I would certainly say that there are perverse mechanisms which mean that some questions get far more attention and upvotes than they deserve, including some extreme cases where they should really be deleted instead. (NB don't ask for examples on this site, because the specific ones I'm thinking of are on a sister site).