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Allow users to vote to close bountied questions

It seems pretty ridiculous that someone can filibuster for a week (or longer if they have rep to burn) simply by offering a bounty on a question. I don't understand how subverting an entire community (with or without intent) is compatible with SE's semi-democratic process. (Then again, I don't understand how it's compatible with the United States' form of government either :P). Can we get this feature removed? The bounty should be refunded to the offerer in this case, I would think, since the bounty period is cut short. (Do whatever you want with the bounty, see comments.)

I'm bringing this up specifically because of this question on Gaming, which I find to fail nearly every criterion for a good on-topic question. I don't think I should need to flag it and attempt to convince a mod to take it upon themselves; the community ought to be quite capable of dealing with this if they agree with my take on the question.

(I assumed this would be a duplicate request, but couldn't find anything ... let me know if you do.)

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    +1, I hate this. When a bountied question gets closed, some of the rep could just go back to the user who applied the bounty. But not all of it, because he should know better.
    – Buns Glazing
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 16:59
  • You didn't search hard enough :P
    – Jeff Mercado
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 16:59
  • @JeffMercado Lol, and I've upvoted at some point in the past apparently! Thanks....
    – user154510
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:02
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    Yeah, yeah, everyone loves to talk about punishing the guy with the audacity to "protect" his question with a bounty. In this case, the question sat untouched for over a month, got bountied, got two answers in response to the bounty. Closing it now (particularly with a bounty refund) punishes the answerers more than the asker.
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:14
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    @Shog9 In this case I'm not saying he did it to protect the question (though that has been done previously on Gaming). But what does it have to do with punishing the user? Closing a question isn't a punishment. The fact that the question was missed (in the absolute MASS of Diablo 3 questions) doesn't mean it should stay open or that the bounty should keep it open. You didn't provide any reason why a bounty should protect a question like this.
    – user154510
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:39
  • @MatthewRead: that was more in response to GnomeSlice's comment about not refunding the whole amount because "he shoulda known better". BTW: still don't see a single comment or even a flag about what's wrong with that question on that question...
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:42
  • @Shog9 Gotcha. I would take that as evidence of the negative effect the bounty is having -- people often leave comments when they take action. Whining about futility is probably best left to chat and Meta where it is now :P, but I'm sure we could muster up some critical comments for the question if that's needed; I've added one.
    – user154510
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:45
  • @Matthew: again, in over a month no one has criticized that question publicly on Gaming. I checked - it actually had four close votes at one time, but they expired... Again, without a single comment identifying the problem with the question. Not saying anyone should whine about it, but your frustration with the bounty could've potentially been avoided completely if the question had been fixed - or the author at least made aware - a month ago.
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 17:55
  • @Shog9 Fair enough. Still, I don't think that has any bearing on whether a bounty should disable close voting.
    – user154510
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 18:14
  • @Matthew: your specific suggestion (that closing would refund the bounty) does... The whole point of bounties is to sweeten the deal a bit for answerers, get more attention for a neglected question - if you answer a bountied question in good faith and the bounty is revoked, that would tend to hurt your trust in such a system. Of course, if you have reason to believe the question would be closed, that's a bit different - but in the example you gave, there was no visible indication that anything was amiss.
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 18:22
  • @Shog9 If that minor sidepoint is the reason you status-declined this, I'll remove it. I just figured that was the natural thing to do with the bounty -- if you were to post a bounty in good faith and it was revoked without the rep being restored, that would tend to hurt your trust in such a system. No? There are tradeoffs here, the details are up to you guys to decide on -- my issue is with bounties disabling close voting, I thought that was clear.
    – user154510
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 18:41
  • Might as well discuss this on Mark's proposal, since this variation has now been suggested there as well. But for the record, I don't think it's "minor" at all - remember, the original justification for even having a system for bounties was to encourage answers to questions where answering would require more than the usual amount of effort. Revoking that after someone's already put the effort in breaks that contract. This isn't a side-effect-free "undo" you're proposing here.
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 18:48
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    @Matthew: To be honest, I rather dislike the entire concept of bounties, hence my opposition to anything that would weaken the constraints placed on them. But yes, totally different topic ;-)
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 18:58
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    You can't offer a bounty for 48 hours after the question is asked, so just close it in the first 24 hours.
    – Kevin
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 21:22
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    @MatthewRead my point is that you have two full days to catch bad questions before they can be "protected" by bounties. If they make it past that, they can't be that bad, and if they do still need to be deleted just flag for a mod.
    – Kevin
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 21:33

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