16

As per this post (and this one):

To discourage overly promotional bounties, if you are starting a bounty on a question you yourself have answered, the minimum rep cost is 100, increased from the standard 50.

However, users can easily get around this by deleting their answer, starting the bounty, and then undeleting the answer, as seen here.

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    So, the solution? Make deleted answers count? Don't allow self-undeletion during active bounties started by the answerer?
    – a cat
    Oct 1, 2011 at 18:16
  • 1
    Make deleted answers count would be easiest solution, but this has a potential side effect: someone answers the question, realizes their answer is wrong, deletes it and posts a bounty. So the better solution would be not allow someone to undelete their answers while the bounty is active.
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 1, 2011 at 18:55
  • It seems to me that the only abuse is that the first bounty has a lower minimum of 50 rather than 100; repeated bounties will still require doubled values, right? Like commented in the source post I'd rather not force honest folks to have a minimum of 100.
    – Arjan
    Oct 1, 2011 at 19:06
  • I don't really think this is a problem; if a person creates an awesome answer that deserves more than 5 votes, I don't see what's wrong with advertising it with a bounty. They can't really control who upvotes it, and it's not abusive for people to upvote advertised answers. Besides, it's definitely a gamble, and you might not always come ahead.
    – Peter Olson
    Oct 1, 2011 at 21:48
  • @PeterOlson This is clearly a problem, or SO wouldn't have come up with this restriction in the first place. Look at this question for example: stackoverflow.com/posts/3115559/revisions
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 1, 2011 at 22:38
  • 1
    I guess this is a better example of why the restriction might be in place—even if there the bounties were only set to get attention for a product.
    – Arjan
    Oct 2, 2011 at 16:30

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

Ok, just changed it so we test for deleted posts as well.

The intention here was to discourage not eliminate. The doubling of required spend on subsequent bounties takes care of the egregious cases anyway.

Improve this answer
4

Given that promotional bounties are largely accepted by the community, I don't see the point for that restriction in the first place. The restriction also prevents someone for giving a bounty when they have provided a partial answer and are hoping to incite a more complete answer with the bounty. So rather than prevent workarounds to this rule, I'd rather see the rule removed.

Improve this answer
4
  • I believe the restriction is in place to avoid situations like this: I post an answer to a question, then I put a bounty, and because of that the questions gets more views, and chances are that my answer gets upvoted more (because more people viewed it). If my answer gets more than 5 votes from visitors that only visited because the question had a bounty, then I gained extra rep even with the cost of the bounty, and even if someone else wins the bounty.. With that being said I think no one does this as it's difficult to tell if it's worth doing..
    – Andreas Bonini
    Oct 2, 2011 at 13:19
  • 1
    @Koper If you follow the links, you'll find that it has been done. But there's no consensus that this is abuse, and the exponential increase in the bounty amount already ensures you won't be able to do it for many weeks on end (which was already not always a winning strategy: after a while, everyone who might been attracted by the bounty and would have voted will have voted).
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Oct 2, 2011 at 13:39
  • I would argue against "largely" accepted. I personally find it very annoying to see the same question popping up all the time because of this.
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 14:07
  • @NullUserExceptionஇ_இ On SO one question gets lost in the noise, and on other sites I don't think there is enough traffic that the bounty is going to return more rep that it costs. Where did you see “same question popping up all the time”? Not that I like this practice, but I see it as dubious and marginal, compared to the productive practice of setting a bounty to incite a better answer.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Oct 2, 2011 at 17:14

You must log in to answer this question.

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