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I understand that it is not possible to add a new answer to a question that has been closed, but why are you still able to vote existing answers up? This doesn't make any sense to me, as surely it undermines the impact and purpose of the question being closed in the first place.

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I agree; people go in and add comments and vote and edit their previous answers, bumping an otherwise undesirable answer back up to the top. I hate to just delete closed questions because they can teach, but I really want to when it seems like people are basically ignoring the close to post information anyway. I'd like the site functionality to close stuff down once things are closed. Of course, the main rebuttal is that once something's closed you want it edited to reopen, but 99% of the time that's editing the question not other activity.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Do mods still have the power to lock posts? ("Moderators can lock posts. Locked posts cannot be voted on or changed in any way.") That seems to be a good use for it—keeping useful "historical" closed questions that we don't want to delete, but that we also don't want to getting bumped onto the front page or gathering rep for Qs and As that no longer align with site guidelines. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Apr 9, 2013 at 17:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ Locking is supposed to be for heavy stuff (meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22228/what-is-a-locked-post). We can "protect" them but that's not the same (I just tried that on rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/24592/…). In most cases if it turns into hassle we'll just delete unless there's some good reason not to - most of these are not "historical" they're "hysterical." \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Apr 10, 2013 at 1:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ I see what you mean; yeah, locking isn't called for. So it's just going to be a self-moderating thing with old posts--if you like 'em enough to want to keep editing, you like 'em enough to not bump them and bring them to the attention of mods with a delete button handy. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Apr 10, 2013 at 1:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah. I mean, it's working as designed - someone should be able to edit it to fix it, and as a result it should get bumped up. If someone's editing just for grins, then it's annoying. Thus, edit to fix, not to meddle, especially with old closed questions. \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Apr 10, 2013 at 1:44
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The design intention of Stack Exchange is that closed questions that will never get fixed and reopened should be deleted, except when they serve as signposts for what not to ask.

Which closed questions get kept as signposts and which get deleted, and the delay between closure and deletion for those questions so fated, is a function of the moderation team's priorities and will vary from site to site.

Here at RPG.SE we seem to like to err on the site of keeping most of our closed questions around so that we can close-as-duplicate incoming repeats. It also might have a benefit in teaching new voters what is and isn't on topic by example, should they go digging around or witness a close-as-duplicate to a previously-closed question.

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