How to search for all questions with bounties across the network?

Question

I wanted to search for questions on all SE sites that had a bounty. I am not sure if it is possible, and if it is how can I?

I have seen other questions that show how to find questions on each individual site, but how can I find all of them in one search from the homepage stackexchange.com? If this has been asked already, please let me know.

It has been suggested that the question was already asked (click here for the question), but that question only showed how to find those questions on each separate site or some complex way to search. I am hoping to find a way to search for bountied questions easily or for someone to create a way to do this.

Answer 1

The Stack API has two endpoints that we can use to implement this. First we use /sites to get a list of all sites. After that we call /questions/featured to get the per-site featured (bountied) questions.

The following Stack Snippet demonstrates the use of those two end-points and produces a list of all featured questions across all sites. The script does take the API throttle limits into account. When hit (or when a result-set is paged) a link appears at the end of the list that needs to be clicked to continue loading.

(function () {
  var api = {
    url: 'https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/',
    endpoint: 'questions/featured',
    params: { 
      site: 'stackoverflow',
      pagesize: 100,
      order: 'desc',
      sort: 'activity',
      Filter: '!iCF4LsDYJt6oT_Y1qKBCOv',
      key: 'JBN9WXWxwrcnAj7WEEytmQ(('
      }
    },
      sites = [],
      siteIndex = -1;
    
    
  function createUrl(ap) {
    var ep = ap.url + ap.endpoint +'?',
     nv = [];
    $.each(ap.params, function (k,v) {
       nv.push(k + '=' + v);
    });
    console.log(ep + nv.join('&'));
    return ep + nv.join('&');
  }
 
  function enableLoad(func) {
    $('#load').show();
    $('#load').one('click', func);
  }
   
  // load a page of featured questions
  function load(page) {
    console.log(sites);
    api.params.page = page;
    api.params.site = sites[siteIndex].sapi;
    $('#load').hide();
    $.get(createUrl(api), function (data) {
      var i, 
          list = $('#fav'),
          next;
      for(i = 0; i < data.items.length; i = i +1) {
          list.append(
            $('<div></div>').append(
              $('<img/>')
                .attr('src',sites[siteIndex].url)
                .attr('title',sites[siteIndex].name),
            $('<a></a>')
              .attr('href', data.items[i].link)
              .attr('title', data.items[i].bounty_amount)
              .html(data.items[i].title)
            ));
      }
      if (data.has_more) {
        next = function () { load(page + 1); };
        if (data.backoff !== undefined) {
          window.setTimeout( function () {
              enableLoad(next);
            }, 
            data.items.backoff * 1000);  
        } else {
            enableLoad(next);
        }
      } else {
        siteIndex = siteIndex + 1;
        if (siteIndex < sites.length) {
          load(1);
        } else {
           $('#load').hide(); 
          }
      }
    });
  }

  // load all sites and setup sites array
  function loadSites() {
   $.get('https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/sites?pagesize=500&filter=!*l7_tSmzy1mF3bw9odQw*8ur&key=JBN9WXWxwrcnAj7WEEytmQ((', function(data) {
        var i;
         for(i=0; i < data.items.length; i++) {
           if (data.items[i].site_type === 'main_site') {
                sites.push({ "name": data.items[i].name,
                             "sapi": data.items[i].api_site_parameter,
                             "url": data.items[i].icon_url
                            });
             }
           }
        sites.sort(function(a,b) { 
          return a.name < b.name?-1: a.name>b.name?1:0; 
        });
        siteIndex = 0;
        
        if (data.backoff !== undefined) {
          window.setTimeout( function () {
              load(1);
            }, 
            data.items.backoff * 1000);  
        } else {
            load(1);
        }
      });
  }
  
  loadSites();
}());

#onhold div {
  overflow:hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
  white-space:nowrap;
  }

#load {
  padding: 1em;
  text-align: center; 
  cursor: pointer
  }

img {
  height: 1em;
  }

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="error" style="display:none">
</div>
<div id="fav">
  
</div>
<div id="load" style="display:none">
 Click to load more ...
</div>

Answer 2

With "one search from the homepage stackexchange.com", the most closest alternative I find is to search for "featured questions - " using the network wide search, powered by Google (<-- which means that the SE magical search operators don't work), but this starts to output unwanted results from the pages > 2.

https://stackexchange.com/search?q=%22featured%20questions%20-%20%22

This will show the lists of the featured questions on all the SE sites and you can click on one list.

The other options, like searching for "This question has an open bounty" doesn't work because the google search seems to be cached. The data explorer won't help there because it's updated only every week (though I believe @rene can create one, taking the questions with the bounties set < 8 days ago).

So, I'm not sure there's direct alternative to the per-site featured lists.