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I opened this bounty, no answers yet and probably no solutions will be given any time soon, because I really asked a hard, maybe impossible question. I know that and that's why I opened a bounty.

The problem itself is solved, I got a windows XP image, but I would like to know the answer to my question. I don't want that the bounty goes for nothing. I am not asking for a refund and I am aware that this is an impossible thing, probably.

All I want is for my bounty to be open forever. Maybe two years from now there will be a solution. Maybe they'll create a Corona that runs on Wine or natively on Linux. Then someone would answer my question and I'll be giving him the bounty. That way I get my answer, he gets his bounty and we're both happy.

If it goes to nothing, no one wins. I don't get my answer, I lose rep, and the problem is not solved.

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  • 7
    Bounties draw attention; not answers. Your question got the attention, when the bounty expires it is the turn of other questions to get attention. What makes your question so special to allow it to hog the limelight?
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 15, 2014 at 23:58
  • @MartijnPieters yes and maybe 2 years from now, it will draw the attention of someone who deserve the bounty. if it goes now, no one wins
    – Lynob
    Feb 15, 2014 at 23:59
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    If a bounty could be open forever there becomes little point in having the system...
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Feb 15, 2014 at 23:59
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    And maybe the question will be answered anyway in two years, even without the bounty. Or, you could do us the courtesy of self-posting an answer if you find out from Corona how to do it.
    – user102937
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:00
  • @RobertHarvey maybe, but the moment I opened the bounty, I lost rep, why wasting it for nothing? why not giving it to that someone who answers it?
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:01
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    @Fischer: you didn't waste it, the question drew attention. If you expected it to draw answers instead, then that was the wrong expectation, sorry.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:01
  • @benisuǝqbackwards no, since if there's an answer with minimum 2 upvotes, he'll be rewarded the bounty even if i didn't give it to him
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:02
  • @Fischer: the answer would gain half the bounty.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:02
  • @MartijnPieters still better than being wasted to nothingness
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:03
  • That isn't really an answer to my point @Fischer... you're asking for a bounty to be open forever, and I'm saying you might just as well scrap bounties if that happens.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:03
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    @Fischer: Bounties are like an advertisement budget. You got your advertisement slot, and like all marketing campaigns, there is a chance people don't buy the product. But you still got access to the rare commodity: attention.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:05
  • @MartijnPieters i don't need the advertisement no more, i got a solution, being on the featured page means nothing to me, but awarding it to someone is better than nothingness, by philosophical definition, anything is better than nothing
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:14
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    @Fischer: then don't use a bounty like that. You can add a bounty after the fact to award to an existing answer.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:16
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    Advertisements don't guarantee responses. Nor do bounties. That's a fact you'll have to live with. At most you can do what @MartijnPieters says; award a bounty to an existing answer once you get one.
    – Bart
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:19
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    @Fischer: of course not; but you are not buying answers here. You are the car salesman hoping to sell the car, and are drawing in punters.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:21

2 Answers 2

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Bounties are meant to feature questions. The ability to feature a question is contingent on the ability to do it within a limited time window. Otherwise, bountied questions would pile up over time, and none of them would get any special attention.

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    then why not change the system a bit? bounties which are not answered within the time window are removed from the featured page, but they are awarded if someone answers them
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:05
  • @Fischer: again, that's not the goal of a bounty. It is a side-effect of the current system; an extra incentive to answer in a limited time frame. But the votes and the accept mark are still there; just like limited-time offers, you can still have the product, just not at the reduced rate.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:07
  • Answers diminish in value and importance the longer the time elapses between the question and answer.
    – user102937
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:07
  • @Fischer: And if we allow bounties to persist we'd devalue all unanswered questions that never had a bounty.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:08
  • @MartijnPieters yes, if the asker thinks that his question is really valuable to him, better open a bounty, I don't see why you open a bounty if you think that your question is not important
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:09
  • @RobertHarvey i know but anything is better than nothingness in my humble opinion
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:10
  • @Fischer: of course the question asker thinks the question is important; that's why you pay a bounty to draw attention. It is the expectation of an answer that is incorrect here. On Stack Exchange sites, the offers on sale really are limited.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:23
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Bounties have been created to highlight questions and draw attention to them for a little time. If a bounty becomes endless, spotlights of featured questions would be useless, because flooded in old questions...

Look at StackOverflow, there's already 426 questions featured at the moment (16/02/2014 midnight UTC). Imagine if every old unanswered questions with bounties were kept... :-)

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  • read my comment @robert
    – Lynob
    Feb 16, 2014 at 0:06

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