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I put up this bounty over on SO with the assumption that the text would be formatted like it is for a question or answer.

I'm not really sure if I was incorrect in my assumption, or if I just formatted my text improperly, as I can't go back and edit what I put in. Am I missing an obvious feature? If not, would it be reasonable to request bounty-text edits—perhaps with moderator-approval to prevent abuse?

Edit: I was trying to use markdown to produce an unordered list as part of my bounty. What you see in the link is a blob of text with dashes separating phrases

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  • Seems like a logical assumption to me. (Disclaimer: Personally, I haven't issued any bounties since the bounty system was updated to allow for this.)
    – Nightfirecat
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 6:23
  • 1
    If you flagged your post as "Other" and explained what you did, I think they'd probably refund the bounty so you could do it again correctly. (I guess you could include a link to this thread too, now.)
    – Jeremy
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 6:29
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    @JeremyBanks That works for one-off mistakes. I think people like me would waste a moderator's valuable time--that is, some people aren't meticulous enough to write compile-on-the-first-time code (or markdown, in this case)
    – Eric Hu
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 6:42
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    Seconded, I was about to ask the same question. For what it's worth, the bounty text seems to follow the same markdown rules as comments (I was able to format code, and comment markdown indeed doesn't support bulleted lists).
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Dec 4, 2011 at 9:25
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    @Frédéric, did you try fancy formatting in the bounty you apparently put on this question some time ago? See also What markdown formatting features are available for Bounty remarks? (But I guess that needs a definitive answer from a developer.)
    – Arjan
    Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 8:25
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    @Arjan, actually, I tried to be clever and put formatting errors and typos in my bounty text on purpose, to try and convey my intent better (my intent being "we should be able to edit the bounty text, because we're not perfect and everyone makes mistakes sometimes"). That did not really work, though.
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 11:41
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    It might also be useful to add the ability to change the bounty reason as well, if you later decide that one of the other reasons is a better fit. Maybe limit it to only 5-10 minutes after the bounty is created.
    – user163250
    Commented Apr 22, 2014 at 8:03
  • 1
    See also Can Moderators Modify Bounty Text?.
    – user163250
    Commented Apr 30, 2014 at 9:12
  • 2
    @YaakovEllis two years after being put into review, any updates?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 15, 2022 at 11:12
  • @YaakovEllis three and half years after being put into review, any updates?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 21:01

3 Answers 3

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+50

How about this:

  • a (say 5 minute?) short time frame to edit the text, much like comments
  • perhaps during that period a small warning for viewers, explaining the bounty text may still be tweaked

That would allow honest folks to catch perhaps up to 95% of all minor (often formatting) mistakes, without a (big) risk of people investing wasted time to score a bounty while finding out later the bounty requirements changed a lot.

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  • 35
    Or maybe a preview of the bounty text, like when entering a question.
    – Mr Lister
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 20:46
  • Aye, I even made a separate request for that just before posting this answer.
    – Jeroen
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 20:48
  • Needs to be much longer than 5 minutes. I'd prefer editable for the entire bounty duration w/ revision history, but that is probably a big ask. I'll happily settle for editable within 1 day.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 9, 2020 at 18:46
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    I have two suggestions for improvement regarding this. (1) Please consider making the bounty description editing WYSIWYG (ie., with a preview similar to what is available for general question submission / editing where we can see the rendered version. (2) Please consider adding an edit link for the asker to allow editing the bounty text. I am okay with time limits for finalizing the edits.
    – vvg
    Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 13:03
  • Or require approval as OP suggests of other moderators/high rep people - imagine a typo you notice a day after...
    – jave.web
    Commented Aug 22, 2023 at 11:53
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+50

Yes, please!

Despite earlier (deleted) tests that showed paragraphs and even block quotes were supported, I just learned that since January only mini-Markdown is supported, very much like comments. Earlier today, I even used the preview question editor to ensure my Markdown was fine. Still then, the paragraphs and blockquote got lost in the final result! I'd love to fix that.

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  • 5
    Picture of the original test.
    – Rob W
    Commented Feb 19, 2012 at 14:07
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    And formatting issues aside, it would be nice to be able to fix silly mistakes as well.
    – shanethehat
    Commented May 1, 2012 at 11:17
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+50

Several times now I've really, really wanted to edit a bounty notice now for moderation purposes.

Today a bounty was flagged for using excessive emoji. The bounty was already well under way, and had attracted an answer that must've taken some work, so removing the bounty would be unfair to the answer-er competing for a 250 point bounty. We can't guarantee that the bounty would be re-posted by the OP if we removed it, after all, and the OP would have to post a doubled bounty.

And indeed, out of 1600 characters, 1026 where emoji and extra newlines. That's a full kilobyte of noise, for an otherwise good bounty. I ended up removing the post notice, keeping the bounty in place. That's not a good outcome either as now we have a bountied post with no visible indication on it what the bounty value is or when it will expire!

I'd love to see bounty notices being treated like comments are:

  • Time limited editing for regular users.
  • Unlimited editing for site moderators (and CMs).
  • Editing history available for inspection by site moderators.

That way moderators can handle bounty message abuse in ways fairer to those that have already posted answers.

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