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I found a hack which one can use to ask a question and offer a bounty for it as it becomes visible:

  • Compose a new question
  • Delete it
  • Undelete it after two days or more
  • Offer a bounty

Edit3 - Abuse scheme:

As Joshua Dwire pointed out in his answer: I can compose a dummy questions and delete it. Whenever I'd like to pose some real question and offer a bounty immediately - I'll just undelete it, change it and offer a bounty.

Edit2:

Bounties are allowed to be be offered only 48 hours after a question was published (see here), but I believe that they should be allowed to be offered 48 hours after a question becomes visible.

I believe that bounty eligibility should be reset after undeletion.

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  • 7
    I fail to see how this could possibly be used abusively. If someone really wants to get more attention for their question, why would they want it to be deleted for two days before bountying it?
    – Servy
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:17
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    It's an edge case, not sure how worth it is to fix. You still have to wait 2 days, but your post may not be visible for the entire time.
    – psubsee2003
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:17
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    The only way I can see this being a problem is if it's extended a bit: 1) Post question, 2) Delete, 3) Undelete after two days, post bounty, 4) Your sock puppet answers, 5) Delete again (this is the lynchpin and I'm not even sure it's possible) 6) As soon as the bounty can be awarded, undelete and award. This way no one has a chance to even try for the bounty. But even that's not much sneakier or problematic than just using a bounty to inflate your sock.
    – jscs
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:21
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    I found a glitch in your glitch.The question is still 2 days old... which activates the bounty....
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:23
  • @JoshCaswell Why bother doing all of that? If you want to pass a bounty to a sock just add a bounty to a question, answer with the sock, and award it to your sock. Even easier to do, and looks much less suspicious to passerby. Of course, both are equally against the rules as well.
    – Servy
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:24
  • I thought the purpose of the 2 day, was to allow people to answer it... in essence this hack doesn't allow people to answer it, which can cause your question to be freshly submitted with a bounty with no answers. So this seems like a problem, but only a minor one at that.
    – Arian Faurtosh
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:24
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    Yes, it's pretty much pointless, @Servy; the only reason to do it would be to scratch that "evil mastermind" itch. It's the same procedure with or without deletion.
    – jscs
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:25
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    To your edit; if someone did this to try to keep a poor quality question open all you'd need to do is flag the question and a mod would refund the bounty and close the question. It's an odd enough edge case that there's no need to program for it; this kind of thing is exactly what we have mods for.
    – Servy
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:31
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    Can you please explain why you think it's something one "is not supposed to do"?
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:17
  • @ShaWizDowArd: Question edited to explain why.
    – Lior Kogan
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:22
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    @LiorKogan But the bounty is being added 48 hours after the question is published. There is no requirement that the question be visible for that entire time. You're proposing a new feature whereby a question needs to be visible for 48 hours before it can have a bounty placed on it. If you would like to see that feature implemented you'll need to justify why it is worth the effort to implement.
    – Servy
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:28
  • @Servy: You're right. However, I believe that this was the intention of this feature.
    – Lior Kogan
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:47
  • To really analyse whether or not this is a problem, we have to know why you're not allowed putting a question up for bounty immediately. Which I'm not sure of.
    – Cruncher
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:50
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    You have a strange definition of "immediately"
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:58
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    I get you now and it's really a concern. But such thing (completely changing question after posting it) is not valid so just flag such question to moderator's attention and he can revoke the bounty and roll back the question. Repeated behaviour of this kind will lead to suspension.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Dec 6, 2013 at 23:05

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

I don't think this is much of a problem. The only way I can see a major abuse for this hack is if a user posts a dummy question and deletes it so he can immediately post a question with bounty later if he needs to.

  1. Post a question with just enough content to get past any quality filters.
  2. Immediately delete the question.
  3. Bookmark a link to the question.
  4. A few days, weeks, or months later edit the question to contain the text of a newly encountered problem.
  5. Undelete the question.
  6. Add a bounty to it.

Result:

You have a question with a bounty immediately after discovering a problem. A possible problem is that the question can't be closed by non-mods, but viewing the history and post date should make it obvious what happened, and the post can be flagged.

I guess I see one other potential problem: A user could post a bad question, then delete it. Two days later they could undelete it and add a bounty and the question couldn't be closed by normal users. It could still be flagged though and a mod could close/delete it.

In any case, if this is abused, the offending post can still be flagged and the user can be warned to stop.

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26

This is illogical. You've still waited 2 days. Plus with the question deleted you can't attract any answers. Why would you want to do this? You may as well unplug your monitor for two days so ignoring any responses.

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  • 7
    +1 for You may as well unplug your monitor for two days so ignoring any responses.
    – Walker
    Dec 6, 2013 at 20:27
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    Someone is going for a reversal badge here;)
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:26
  • @ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd: And... done. :-)
    – Jamal
    Dec 6, 2013 at 23:07
  • Please read my Edit3.
    – Lior Kogan
    Dec 7, 2013 at 6:06

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