11

On all sites, including beta sites and Stack Overflow for Teams sites, all users need at least 75 reputation to gain the privilege to start bounties.

However, this requirement is not clearly mentioned in the help center page on bounties. The text on that page, not including any pages it links to, only implies that one needs to have as much rep as the bounty amount (which is true for bounties of 100+ rep). Nowhere is it stated that one needs at least 75 reputation to start a 50-reputation bounty.

This was previously requested at Please mention in the help screen that bounties require 75 rep, but a staff member declined to implement it as the page contains a link to the relevant privilege page. However, that link is merely titled as "attach [your rep] to any question as a bounty", and doesn't make explicitly clear that 75 reputation is required. This omission just resulted in confusion from a user as to why the bounty option wasn't showing up at 50 rep despite them claiming to have read that help page.

Can it please be added in explicit text to the help center page on bounties that 75 reputation is required to gain the privilege to put bounties? In other words, can the decision to not action the prior request on the grounds that it's mentioned in an (unclear) link please be reconsidered?

Improve this question
3
  • Why do we have information about bounties split among two help pages and an FAQ page (which in my opinion is far superior to anything in the Help Center)? I don't think duplicating the information in the bounty help page is the lasting solution to the problem, although it would be a reasonable stopgap.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 13:26
  • @ColleenV usually, I see the FAQs here on MSE as a 'further reading' section of the help center pages: they contain much more detailed information, but often those are things you only need to know if you're really interested in the finer details of how things work. As for the two help pages, I do think it's helpful to have one page for people that earned a privilege, and another that can be linked to people that encounter the use of these privileges by others... You don't need to be told how to set a bounty if you can't, but you might be interested in knowing what the heck a bounty is.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 15:02
  • @Tinkeringbell I agree that the FAQ as a whole should be just a link for more detailed information. What I meant was that it is better organized and better written than the help center pages. I think instead of maintaining partial/duplicate information on two separate pages, privileges pages should be focused on "what is this privilege exactly" and should point to the more detailed help for how to use it, what the requirements are etc. That page should be organized so that it is easy to find answers to specific questions without reading pages of text.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 15:11

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

I tried a simple search [bounties] 75 and unless I missed something -discounting deleted questions that aren't visible- there are 12 questions asked on meta.se about the minimum rep necessary to start a bounty. In chronological order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Including the one yesterday 12 that likely originated the current feature request.

While this seems to not have caused too many problems adding 1 sentence to the Help Center would correct the omission.

Improve this answer
2
  • I imagine a lot of them would have been downvoted to a negative score for lack of research and as such automatically deleted by the Roomba.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 8:32
  • @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog that would also be my guess, but I have no way of verifying it.
    – bad_coder
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 8:35

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .