The "active" page on drupal.SE/questions uses the term "modified" when it should report "answered" or not using a word at all

Question

See for example Transition plan for PHP5 abomination to Drupal; the page reports the question has been modified and reports googletorp as username, but what it really happened is that googletorp answered to the question.

As it is, I would get that googletorp modified the question, not that he answered to the question.

Similarly, in WYSIWYG error when using managed_file and AJAX, Bart Vanhoutte effectively asked the question, but using "modified" makes me understand that he asked the question, and then modified it, which is not what happened in this case.

Differently, the "active" page in the front page doesn't use any participle; it just reports the last user who answered, edited the question, or edited an answer.

Adding a participle, when it is always the same doesn't add any information; if the page used answered and edited too, then it would make sense to use modified when it means the user effectively modified the question.
Having two similar pages that report different information, and where in one case the information given can be misunderstood, or not correctly interpreted, is confusing for the users.

Answer 1

"modified" is correct, and that's how it has always been -- it means the last person to perform any activity on the question page.

Adding an answer is indeed modifying the question from our perspective -- an answer was added!

Think of it at the page level. The "last modified date and person" of the page which is the question.