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Specifically, this question's answers all say that after the fact it's impossible to get the access time of a file on NTFS.

I was disappointed by the answer but couldn't take "no" for an answer, so dug a little deeper and found a way of doing just that, basically invalidating all other answers...

My answer (only available to 10+K reputation users) being very lonely at the bottom, is never going to be read by anyone, so how do I easily contact all the posters and tell them there is a (valid) answer? (Although I doubt the OP will ever accept it as he's not really active on the site)

To be as complete as possible: on the SE site I spend most time on, I would just drop into the chat room and yell about this and would get enough upvotes to get it to the top after enough people would have validated my answer...

Update: I was wrong, all the others were right: it cannot reliably get done, even when syncing the cache to disk.

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  • 6
    If every answer appears to be wrong, the two most likely reasons are: 1. You didn't understand the question, or 2. You hold a belief which is incorrect. It's certainly possible that you're the only person who knows something that has escaped the notice of thousands of others, but it does seem unlikely. Since I'm a Linux admin I can't really tell which of these is the case, but you should be prepared for the possibility that it's you who might be mistaken. May 31, 2015 at 0:29
  • @MichaelHampton: Yeah, running exclusively on Linux too, but I still have some friends/family I haven't been able to convince to move over to FLOSS... ;-)
    – Fabby
    May 31, 2015 at 15:27
  • 3
    @MichaelHampton: Just to inform you that, yes, my belief was incorrect: it cannot be done reliably! Answer deleted and thanks again for the feed-back.
    – Fabby
    Jun 1, 2015 at 12:06

3 Answers 3

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In the general case, you can leave a comment either on the question or the highest-voted and/or accepted answer.

In your case, your answer is wrong, so there is no need to do anything.

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  • See comment below the original answer: it can be done for a file (which is what the original question is about) and I've tested on Vista and Windows 7, and will be re-installing my Windows 10 preview sometime later when I get some more time as I personally don't run Windows.
    – Fabby
    May 31, 2015 at 15:30
  • 1
    Everyone was right and I was wrong: it cannot be done reliably!: so your meta answer accepted and my SF answer deleted! ;-) I didn't bother installing W10, but just tried it out on a Win8 machine...
    – Fabby
    Jun 1, 2015 at 12:03
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Well, that is normally being handled by voting up/down.

Some answers are better than the accepted ones, but normally the best answers get the most upvotes. IMHO this is working very good.

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Well, unfortunately it can happen, although not really often.

The background is in most cases, that there is a common misconception, or an unsaid ideological reason around the topic. And the answers are regularly racing to formulate this common misconception, or they are racing to express their opinion in the possible clearest and most obvious form.

What you can do: the rules are very clear. If you think an answer is bad, you are free to downvote it - and express your advices/suggestions to the answerer. If all of the answers are bad, then you are safe to do the same with all of the answers. Maybe it is a litte bit confrontative, but if you are sure, this is what you should do.

Of course a very polite communication is in this case highly suggested. Getting a down isn't a pleasant experience, so be clear, rational, and polite, even if you don't get this back. Consider: the people getting the downvotes don't think they are wrong, they think (at least, initially) that you are.

If there is an unsaid ideological reason in the topic, try to avoid this, and focus only to the factual aspect of the problem.

I would also highly suggest to use references to support your viewpoint, to make your arguments much more believable.

And, of course, answer your own version, too.

The result will be probably, that you get some downs to your answer, and you also lose some reputation by your initial downvotes. Probably you won't convince everybody on the spot :-), but your answer will serve as a lighthouse. Now, and in the future, you will probably get some upvotes back from people agreeing your version, and it will compensate the lost reputation. Don't forget: an upvote is five times stronger as a down, at least in the sense of the reputation.

If you need to do this too often, then you aren't probably on a really usable site. On my opinion, SF is not on this level, from a factual view it is relatively okay.

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  • Actually, I've only ever had to do this once... And this is it, but I was wrong! ;-) (upvoted as it's a balanced answer)
    – Fabby
    Jun 3, 2015 at 20:39
  • @Fabby Well, it is risky :-) It is better to double-check.
    – peterh
    Oct 1, 2015 at 13:06

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