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A bounty remark? What is that? you're probably wondering.

I'm talking about when one offers a bounty, and I would like to tell the people why e.g. I'm looking for someone to expound this question more clearly, or, I would like to draw attention to this question, or, list criteria for question to be answered.

In this question, I can't edit the question to state my purpose of offering the bounty. Perhaps, could we have a bounty remark, in that when we offer a bounty, we can add a message below the bounty (e.g. a closed question box, has the reason it's being closed), and so we can have the same for bounty questions. Ideas?

Edit: Just to include Jeff's idea. This bounty remark will only apply to when offering a bounty on someone else's questions. This is because the bounty remark is used to declare the altruist's intentions of offering the bounty on another question, whereas offering the bounty on your own question, you could either edit your question to include your intention, or the intention is quite clear already.

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    Just add a comment to the question explaining why you offer the bounty.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 11:47
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    I don't understand why this is necessary. Most of the time, you're looking for an answer to the question. You don't need to provide additional information to explain that; it's quite obvious. There are rare exceptions on Meta, but as Hendrik says, a comment is usually sufficient.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 11:48
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    @Hendrik, in the first place, if it's an old post, very likely it's already got some five or six, if not ten to twenty comments, and my posting it at the very bottom will mean it's seen by absolutely nobody. It's impractical. Having an ability to state your purpose in the bounty box is not a difficult request.
    – Thursagen
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 12:08
  • If the question is cluttered with comments that are ancient and obsolete, you could probably flag them as such, and see if a kind mod will delete them for you.
    – jonsca
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 12:27
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    People would look in the question comments, don't worry. I also can't see enough reason to add remark anywhere else.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 12:33
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    Dunno, I think it is a useful idea, +1. Yes, you can comment or edit the question to add this information, but it can be useful to keep this information with the bounty. For instance, the reason could be highlighted along with the bounty, thus giving it more prominence than a simple comment or a buried edit. In addition, this information could be displayed in the featured list, which would not be possible otherwise.
    – user1228
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 12:59
  • If you're offering a bounty on the question, you're obviously invested in the question to a degree other commenters might not be. I don't think it's unreasonable to give the bounty-poster's comment particular prominence in the way that Thursagen is suggesting; if I'm so invested in a particular issue that I'm willing to spend my rep on it, why does my comment have to slum it with everybody else's? Why does my edit have to wait for approval? Why can't I have (say) 140 characters to specify that I'm 'looking for an itemized list' or what-have-you.
    – jsnlxndrlv
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 22:29
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/103956/…
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Aug 26, 2011 at 16:00
  • Possible duplicate: Add a comment to a bounty.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 12:31

2 Answers 2

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Bounty remarks have been implemented:

custom remark

When you set a bounty you choose a "canned message" and have the ability to expand it with your own remark.

See also: Bounty Reasons and Post Notices blog post and Add a comment to a bounty here on MSE.

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You can just add a comment to the question explaining why you offer the bounty. Usually that won't be necessary, but sometimes it does indeed happen that I don't understand why someone put a bounty. In such a case I always have a look if the user added a comment – and I'm happy if I find the reason there. For me it doesn't matter if it's the 1st or 50th comment to the question.

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