Why cannot this question with an open bounty be closed?

Question

I have seen a number of questions like:

"Do this work for me please" or without "please"

If such a question doesn't have a bounty, I can downvote it if I want or flag it for closing. But if it has a bounty, then it's protected.

Why?

To be clear, I have nothing against "do-it-for-me" questions in real life, but if it's not allowed on Stack Overflow without a bounty why is it allowed with it?

Update: And you can probably close / put on hold such a question after the bounty time is over..

Examples of such questions that I have flagged:

1 - was put on hold and deleted by TS

2 - was put on hold and deleted by TS

3 - flag was declined

4 - flag was declined

5 - flag was declined

6 - flag was declined

7 - flag was marked as helpful

8 - flag was declined

9 - flag was marked as helpful

10 - flag was declined

11 - flag was declined

Answer 1

You can still downvote a question with a bounty and should do so. If a question is something that obviously doesn't belong, you should also flag it for moderator attention (using Other and citing bounty abuse).

Moderators will be able to close & delete such a post (deletion would refund the lost reputation to the user offering the bounty).

Abusing bounties in this way is extremely rare - most people value their reps and the quality of questions on Stack Overflow and as such, though this happens on occasion, it is not something we feel needs to be automated - our human exception handlers can and should deal with these on a case-by-case basis.

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Mad Scientist answered on How to prevent your question being closed? Just post a bounty on it:

If a question that should be closed receives a bounty, it means the moderation has failed already. The question was then open for at least 2 days, in which it should have been closed. For this reason this situation is relatively rare, most questions are closed earlier.

Answer 2

Keep in mind that a bounty cannot be started until two days after the question was asked. So it's not like a user can post a crap question and quickly "protect" it by placing a bounty on it. If the question is not viable, it most likely would have been closed long before it become eligible for a bounty.

We cannot close 'featured' questions as readily as "normal" questions. Bounties are a contract with the participants who were promised a reward for the top answer. Bounties are paid up front and are non-refundable under most circumstances. We don't want to create a situation where promises are made (and the question 'featured') just to have it CLOSED through a slow accretion of votes because the problem wasn't egregious enough to close it quickly.

I think allowing closures during a bounty is more likely to be gamed in the other direction — get your answer with a promise of a bounty, and then get your question closed so you don't have to pay it.

Closing 'Featured' Questions
Automated processes aren't always perfect. If a poorly-asked question gets past the first two days, becomes 'protected' by a bounty, and absolutely can't wait to be closed after the seven days (max), simply 'flag' it for moderator attention. It's an exceptional situation that is easily handled by Moderators. That's why we call them "exception handlers."

Answer 3

Not an answer to this question exactly, more a response to your examples...

There's no "Asks folks to do something for him" close reason. Why not? Because that would mean the vast majority of the questions on SO should be closed - including quite a few rather useful ones.

I think the problem you're suggesting is one involving the asker asking for an exceptional amount of effort, which can be a bit off-putting... But then again...

Why on earth would anyone offer a bounty if they didn't expect someone to do something to earn it?

I don't particularly like bounties; I don't blame you if you don't like them either. But like 'em or not, this was pretty much the exact reason for their creation:

Stack Overflow already works well for smaller, simpler questions. We’re hoping the new question bounty will improve answer quality on those tougher questions that aren’t so easy to answer. But they do require a bigger commitment from both the asker and the answerer — you must be willing to slice off a piece of your own reputation and bestow it upon the person who is best able to answer your question.

If you're gonna be shocked every time you see a "much effort required" question with a bounty on it, you're probably best off not looking at bountied questions.

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Here's my take on the examples:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19065751/simple-python-ormapper-requiring-no-explicit-mapping-in-the-persistent-classes tool-rec question; closed and deleted.

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15744646/nonparametric-multinomial-regression-in-r - tool-rec question; closed and deleted. (this might actually be appropriate for Cross Validated; not sure)

• How should I represent many-to-many class and professor relationship using a REST API and Zend Framework? overly subjective at first glance, but reasonably specific upon further reading. Edited title.

• FusionCharts HeatMap: Display zeroes instead of blanks/missing values - a specific question on a specific tool; now self-answered by the asker. Potentially useful to others with the same problem.

• Can we access a VMX appliance by a name? a specific question on a specific tool.

• How to use a different icon for the App Store and device's home screen in applications with image assets? - a specific question on a specific tool.

• Configuring Intern to setup/teardown my server mock - problematic in that the asker does not go into detail on where he's running into trouble. I'm not familiar enough with testing node.js to know if the problem should be obvious or not though. Posted a comment requesting clarification.

• Nexus 4 / Android tap to scroll issue specific question on a specific problem (one probably familiar to many Android users). Now answered.

• How can I improve the performance of static data caching in ASP.NET? overly broad. Closed, edited by the author, edited by me, reopened.

• How to break the build into several files? specific question regarding specific tool.

• When I set up Hadoop, what permissions are needed on the *underlying* filesystem? specific (if someone confusing) question on specific tool. Now answered.

Two things I found very irritating while reviewing these:

1. critical comments from folks who made no effort to understand the problem ("you question is not SO conform" is... not a very specific criticism. Can you point to an entry in /help that implies this? Perhaps a discussion on meta? Or just state what you find problematic in the question?).

2. Flags that consist of little or nothing beyond ""Do it for me" question". What is that supposed to mean? I'm plenty familiar with questions from folks who've done little more than post an assignment or spec document into the question; none of these matched that pattern. If Stack Overflow can't be used to find solutions to specific programming problems, then what exactly is the point?

Answer 4

The system prevents closing a question with a bounty on it so the user doesn't lose the rep. That being said, you can go through all the steps to close it but you actually can't close it which doesn't make much sense to me. I suggest that when a question has a bounty on it the close option is removed and just the flag option remains. Moderators have the ability to close a question with a bounty and refund any rep.