Post History

Quoting is sometimes necessary for context.  Sometimes an answer needs to focus on one part of the question -- one claim, one line of code, etc.  Not being able to quote would impede clarity.

This doesn't mean we don't want askers to improve their questions.  If somebody asks for clarification, you should edit.  What you shouldn't do is to edit in such a way as to quietly invalidate existing answers.

If your edit doesn't change the answers, except that they're quoting something that you've now revised, you can edit the answers to update the quotes.  Do make sure you aren't changing the content of the answer.

If your change is more disruptive, it's usually better to ask a new question.  In the new question, you can link to your first one and explain what you've learned from it and what your question now is.  Sometimes you think you have a question about X and it turns out your question is really about Y, which you only learned after asking about X.  That's normal and there's no shame in it.  Leave the original in place for the *next* person who has a question about X (or thinks so), and meanwhile ask your question about Y.  Link the questions in both directions if that makes sense.

We ought to consider some automatic mitigation, too.  I've just noticed that we don't number the revisions in our history, which makes it hard for an answer to note "this answer applies to revision 6".  If we have revision numbers, then maybe it makes sense to -- somehow -- add that kind of tracking automatically.  This answer was last edited after revision N of the question -- add that into the answer history or somewhere else that's visible but not too invasive, and the disconnects that can arise from question changes might be reduced.  I'm just throwing out ideas here; we'll need to figure out how this would work and whether it's worth doing.  In the absence of an automated connection, answers can be edited manually when the fact that it applies to an older version of the question matters.  (I did that Somewhere Else once -- had a question that the asker kept changing in ways that affected my answer, and I finally edited to say "applies to version N" and stopped trying to keep up.  That notice was apparently enough to deter downvotes for "answering the wrong question", for what that's worth.)