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Noticed this many times but was too lazy to post.

So I see a message in my inbox that bounty is completed and now in grace period, however its title says that "bounty expiring soon"

enter image description here

Wonderful (not wonderful of course). I click it, and... guess what?

enter image description here

Ok. So 49 mins left. But the main problem is that time traveling is forbidden. (if it is not, please forbid it).

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  • 1
    I'm fairly certain this is by-design. The system sends these notifications in batches once an hour, not at the exact time a bounty actually expires. It's going to be either before or after the bounty expires, and I think getting the notification before is the better option.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Jul 10, 2014 at 7:28
  • Agree with @animuson, what I suggest is maybe change the notification wording to "Your bounty on question ... is going to be completed shortly and will be..."
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Jul 10, 2014 at 7:35
  • I can't really update the wording. This is by design due to caching and timing. Occasionally you'll see this notification but your bounty will appear to have some time left.
    – Haney StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2014 at 19:46
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    @Haney Why? Wording seems illogical...
    – nicael
    Jul 11, 2014 at 19:46
  • @nicael The short version is that the topbar notifications / toasts are run on a scheduled interval, which will sometimes be just ahead of and sometimes just behind the actual bounty expiration.
    – Haney StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2014 at 19:47
  • @Haney Why, by the way, you changed your name to "Haney"? "Honey" would be better :D
    – nicael
    Jul 11, 2014 at 19:49
  • @nicael hah, the problem is our VP Eng is David Fullerton, and in chat people were confusing the Davids so Haney it is!
    – Haney StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2014 at 20:18
  • @Haney But why not "Honey"?
    – nicael
    Jul 11, 2014 at 20:19
  • @nicael makes sense to use my last name.
    – Haney StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2014 at 20:26
  • @Haney I know. It would be funnier if you used "Honey" :D
    – nicael
    Jul 11, 2014 at 20:28
  • @Haney I took the liberty to copy your comments into an answer, comments are not meant to be permanent. Feel free to post your own answer and delete my own if you prefer.
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Sep 10, 2014 at 10:08

2 Answers 2

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This is by design, as the Stack Exchange developer David Haney explained in two comments:

I can't really update the wording. This is by design due to caching and timing. Occasionally you'll see this notification but your bounty will appear to have some time left

And in response to "why":

The short version is that the topbar notifications / toasts are run on a scheduled interval, which will sometimes be just ahead of and sometimes just behind the actual bounty expiration

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    Sorry to tell you guys, even eBay can do much better.
    – GOTO 0
    Sep 11, 2014 at 9:38
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    @GOTO0 sure they can. They can also buy Stack Exchange without second glance on their cash stash. So what?
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Sep 11, 2014 at 12:10
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    @ShadowWizard - That's no excuse for shi**** code.
    – JonH
    Sep 6, 2016 at 16:33
  • @JonH go ahead and write a Q&A site. I am sure your code will be perfect. Or you will understand why some things are more complicated than it seems.
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Sep 6, 2016 at 16:41
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    @ShadowWizard - Nothing is perfect, but I better do my best to write out (especially on the UX side) stuff that doesn't confuse the user. As it has here, and the 100s of times this same question has been posted. There is no doubt issues that can occur but you cannot just neglect them with some strange details due to UTC or some other strange issue. It's no excuse.
    – JonH
    Sep 6, 2016 at 16:43
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Marking broken and confusing functionality as "by design" is silly. This keeps coming up and should be fixed.

If the timing mechanism isn't going to get fixed so that it actually sends notices at a consistent time in relation to the end of the period, then at least update the copy. If you don't know whether the period is up or not, don't pretend like you do. Instead of "has completed" say "completes today at HH:MM UTC" and let the user figure it out when they follow the link. But even if the timing mechanism doesn't know ahead of time you should be able to query the end timestamp and regenerate the string based on the current time. There shouldn't be any reason the notification can't read just like the page does at the time the notification is sent.

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  • You can change your bug report to a feature request asking (in a nicer manner) to change the current behavior, this doesn't really fit as answer here. (Let me know if you do that and I'll vote to reopen your question)
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Feb 25, 2016 at 14:08
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    @ShadowWizard It is a bug report as much as it is a feature request. Also I didn't get grumpy until being redirected here and seeing that it had already been reported and rejected. I could see this being a low priority thing to fix, but marking a blatant miss-match between copy and actual behavior as "status-by-design" is kind of rough luck.
    – Caleb
    Feb 25, 2016 at 16:08
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    Have it your way, but having this here as answer means 0% of the team ever seeing this, let alone "fixing" it. Marking this as by design means this is the current expected behavior, like it or not, so to change current behavior one needs to post a new feature request. Simple as that.
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    Feb 25, 2016 at 16:11

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