I dont think its a visibility issue. Its a priority issue.
We have a lot of armchair mapping today which is in my guess >80% - So people are not out in the fields that often, especially in the well mapped areas.
OTOH notes typically mean “You need to go there to find out, cant be fixed from @home”
Notes which are easy like “This shop is gone” are typically processed quite fast, notes like “There is a hydrant somewhere around this corner” are tricky as someone needs to especially head there.
I personally dont have issues with old notes. I use RSS feeds and an rss2email for notification of new notes or updates in the areas i am interested in.
Sometimes i go on my bike and make a 20 Note ride around town in summer. And then you need to have the courage to close if not beeing able to decide. If I cant find a solution, most likely the average mapper wont be able to find a solution - so close it.
And sometimes i have “tracking notes” like “There is a construction site here - Watch for changes” and then feeding it with updates whenever i see change. For me thats some kind of geographically bound temporal mailinglist anyone can subscribe to.
Flo