Should questions asked using "present tense" in past that have different situations now be edited to make them "past tense"?

Question

I came across this question: Why China is blocking ban on Notable Terrorist Masood Azhar?

It was asked about a year ago and the context was right then. At present, the situation is different. I am not saying it should be closed or deleted or even edited to change the actual meaning. However, should questions like this, be edited to make them look like historical?

For example, it may be rephrased to something like Why had China blocked the ban on Masood Azhar multiple times before he was blocked?

Would it be right to add some timeline or change the tense to some of this type of questions?

Answer 1

I think it would be a mistake to do so. It can potentially create confusion for future readers, and I don't believe it would provide enough benefit to outweigh potential drawbacks of backlash from some post authors.

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Questions are asked at a specific point in time (visible on each question), and are answered at a point in time after that. Editing the tense out of the question will remove that temporal context. Do you also go back and ensure each answer matches the question tense?

Just focusing on certain types of words may leave a wholesale edit on a per-post basis liable to miss other contextual clues. In the post you mention there is the phrase "As per the[sic] todays latest update ..." which would also need to be modified in order for the post to read correctly, rather than leaving each author's own words as close to their original as possible.

My personal take is that there is enough contention from some about moderation interference without introducing another vector for fritction to arise.