How to handle questions where the most Upvoted/Accepted Answer has been rendered incorrect by newer information? [duplicate]

Question

The answer provided by this poster, dated from 2014 (and last edited in 2015) is based on evidence provided by citing Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls that was then interpreted to say that what the OP was trying to do was not possible.

The issue is that in 2016, directly addressing exactly the subject that OP was dealing with, Crawford issued a ruling that directly contradicted the rulings that this answer had inferred from context clues. As a result, the top result that shows up in Google searches for this topic, and thus the result that represents this site's opinion on the subject, directly contradicts the official ruling and the rules that players are expected to follow. In essence, that answer is providing false information to players who find it.

What's the appropriate way to handle this? I don't want to punish the person who wrote that answer: they answered it as best as they could given the information that was available at the time, it's not their fault that newer information contradicted them. But conversely, the top result for this query for our site is providing false information. That seems like something that should be fixed.

Answer 1

Post a new answer or upvote another one that has the correct information

Because of the influx of new content/rulings, answers can often change in what is the best/most correct answer. That is fine. SE has systems set up for this: post a new answer with the correct information. When you do so the question will be kicked up in the queue for review and new eyes will see it and vote on your post accordingly.

You can also start a bounty to get more eyes on the post. With a custom bounty message you could even indicate that the top answer seems to be inconsistent with new rulings and people can vote accordingly.

In this case, commenting to the selected answer will probably not yield any effects since they haven't been active for 4 years, but leaving a comment for the querent (who was active very recently) saying that new information has emerged might get them to relook at the answers. Also posting an answer should also notify them about action on their question.

The point of voting

Not to be a jerk, but the point of voting is not to reward/punish posters but to sort content such that the best content flows up to the top and the worst content gets sent to the bottom. The poster's feelings or the amount of control they have over the correctness of their answer should not, in my opinion, be a huge factor in voting. There are many good faith answers posted to this site that are entirely incorrect and it is the job of the voting system (and by extension us, the voters) to sort those answers out. Vote on the content, not the poster.

In this particular case, the user has not been active for 4 years. It seems unlikely that a few downvotes are going to weigh heavily on their mind.