Shouldn't the OP be required to decide on the bounty or face some consequences?

Question

I provided an answer to this question that had an open bounty for 100 points at the time. I responded a couple days before the bounty was set to expire. I put in a fair amount of work into understanding the question and coding up a solution and believed I would probably earn the bounty as I was the only one putting real work into coding a solution to exactly what was really being asked.

The bounty deadline comes and goes. The OP never responds and never awards the bounty. No other answer showed two or more upvotes. It appears that the OP abandoned the question and the bounty was never assigned to anyone. I've read here on meta that if there are no automatic qualifiers for the bounty, then it just isn't awarded.

Something seems wrong with this process. It seems like when someone offers a bounty, they should be required to finish it in some way, if not in a timely fashion, then some time later when they come back to the site and try to participate some more. They should either select an answer to award the bounty or select a "no acceptable answer was offered". If the readers disagree with their choice of "no acceptable answer was offered", then they can report that action for moderator attention.

Don't the people who offered their answers under the promise of a bounty deserve some sort of resolution? Otherwise, it feels kind of like a bait and switch. The reward is offered, but never paid. I know the OP loses the bounty rep points either way, but this post is meant to be more about fairness to those who put up their answers under the promise of a bounty.

Obviously, there isn't a lot that can be done to "force" the OP to do anything. But, it seems that their privileges on the site could be reduce or restricted in some way if they don't handle the bounty. Or, they could lose double the bounty points if they just ignore their responsibilities entirely. There certainly could be more consequences than there are now (which is none).

Edit: Interesting response here. I guess by all the downvotes, nobody thinks this is worth any attention - that there's no interest in making more of an incentive for someone who offers a bounty to follow up on their bounty and either award the bounty or indicate that no answer solved their issue.

That surprises me. I would have thought people would have wanted to seek improvements that would make it less likely that someone would offer a bounty and never return because that isn't the best use of the site or the best for the site or the best for the bounty system. I'm fine if people don't like my particular ideas for improving it, but this whole exchange felt like people dumped on the idea of even trying to improve this. I certainly felt personally dumped on here. I tried to delete my post a couple days ago, but the system won't let me delete it, so I guess it just gets to sit here and accumulate downvotes.

Well, one thing I learned here - bounties may never be awarded and that doesn't seem to bother anyone. In fact, I may not even bother looking at them any more.

Another interesting observation - the only answer here that actually has much real thought in it has the fewest upvotes. In this case, witty responses seem to garner more popularity than real content.

Answer 1

Unless you want us to drive to their house, armed, and strap them to a chair... I don't really see how we can force them to do anything.

Yeah, offering a bounty and then skipping out is a dick move. Some people are dicks.

Of course, it's also possible his mother died and he got sidetracked arranging the funeral. Or he was kidnapped by Honduran freedom fighters and is awaiting ransom. Or he just forgot. Those things happen too.

Chalk it up to bad luck and move on.

Answer 2

Maybe.

Answer 3

Obviously, there isn't a lot that can be done to "force" the OP to do anything. But, it seems that their privileges on the site could be reduce or restricted in some way if they don't handle the bounty. Or, they could lose double the bounty points if they just ignore their responsibilities entirely. There certainly could be more consequences than there are now (which is none).

The way you phrase this is telling: "their responsibilities". Allow me to say this very plainly:

Users do not have responsibilities to Stack Overflow.

You are not required to upvote posts you like or downvote posts you dislike. You are not required to accept answers to your questions, nor are you required to answer any particular question. Stack Overflow is purely a volunteer service; if you don't want to use it daily, that is your prerogative. If you want to drop a question every week and only come back for the answer a week later, that is up to you.

You are only sanctioned on this site under one of two cases: you post trash (spam, offensive posts, etc), or you ask a lot of trash questions which are repeatedly downvoted and closed. What's important to note that both of these require manual intervention from the community. The community downvotes and closes questions; this eventually triggers the automatic question block once some arbitrary metric is reached. The community flags posts that are spam, offensive, or whatever, and then actual human beings decide what to do about this person.

What you are suggesting is a system that harms a person without any sort of human intervention. Mere inaction, simply forgetting something or getting busy with real life, or any number of real-world conditions, causes them to be sanctioned. Because you believe that they are "[ignoring] their responsibilities" by not giving you your rep.

Sorry, no. A system where we punish people for mere accidents or events beyond their control is not worthwhile. Yes, our current system means that, every now and then, a bounty will be unawarded to people who really wanted them.

Tough. Deal with it.

I prefer that to a system that actively harms someone for a simple mistake or circumstances beyond their control.

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Isn't this a legitimate problem with the site that I'm trying to suggest something ought to be done to improve?

The downvotes are saying that either they don't want the solution you propose or that the problem you suggest is not really a problem.

I'm in the latter camp:

Why should people put a lot of effort into writing code for a bounty question if the OP can just disappear and never award the bounty?

I have plenty of answers I put a lot of effort into that didn't get "rewarded" with a healthy number of upvotes. I've put little effort into some answers that got lots of upvotes.

Ultimately, we cannot judge how much effort you put into an answer and reward you based on that.

Take your particular case. Why should you be rewarded with the bounty? Your answer is no more highly upvoted than anyone else's? The only person who could judge the worthiness of your post, the guy who posted the bounty, opted not to judge anyone worthy.

In those cases, our algorithm for assigning the bounty passes the burden on to the community. The community weighed in... and your post didn't pass muster.

Life isn't fair.

Yes, it's unfortunate that you spent time and effort for a bounty you won't get. What would you suggest? Pick any post that just happened to be posted in that period, without any regard to whether it's a good answer or not?

Two upvotes is not a large burden to reach. If your answer can't reach that, then why should it deserve half the bounty rep?