#We should just leave them alone

There is no good solution to these mixed-bag questions with code in varying states. If there was an easy solution, we would have done it already.

As it stands, my recommendation is that we just leave these things alone, and 'grandfather' the mess. New questions are held to the exacting requirements of 'no code changes after answers'. Old questions are dealt with on an as-needed basis.

They will continue to be a pain, but there are no better alternatives.

Editing them will invalidate subsequent answers, and the time required to identify and 'surgically correct' those questions that can be corrected, will be too much. As you said, locking them is a problem too, etc.

Further, fixing them also makes them 'active' again, and bumps them.

Bottom line, we just live with it.

There is a good option of declaring a 'grandfather date' though, questions 'after' that date are expected to be 'clean', questions from before, are potentially messy, and won't be fixed.

We should just leave them alone

There is no good solution to these mixed-bag questions with code in varying states. If there was an easy solution, we would have done it already.

As it stands, my recommendation is that we just leave these things alone, and 'grandfather' the mess. New questions are held to the exacting requirements of 'no code changes after answers'. Old questions are dealt with on an as-needed basis.

They will continue to be a pain, but there are no better alternatives.

Editing them will invalidate subsequent answers, and the time required to identify and 'surgically correct' those questions that can be corrected, will be too much. As you said, locking them is a problem too, etc.

Further, fixing them also makes them 'active' again, and bumps them.

Bottom line, we just live with it.

There is a good option of declaring a 'grandfather date' though, questions 'after' that date are expected to be 'clean', questions from before, are potentially messy, and won't be fixed.