A user places a bounty on a question not theirs, can the OP withdraw their question from being bountied?

Question

Situations where the OP might object to their question being bountied by someone else:

1. The bounty benefactor is a well-known troublemaker and will (in all likelihood) award the bounty to either a low-rated or controversial answer that is biased or patently false. Once the name of the bounty benefactor disappears, the bounty will seem to have been offered by the OP themself and will appear to conflict with either the accepted answer or the most upvoted one.

2. The benefactor has openly expressed political views which are in sharp contrast with the OP's.

3. The OP is perfectly happy with the answers received and feels the bounty is pointless.

4. The OP is now deeply embarrassed by their on-topic question (for whatever reason) and prefers that question to quietly "disappear" from view.

5. This is the third or fourth bounty offered by the same user. Enough is enough!

Can an OP block their question from being bountied by a third party for a good reason? I listed a couple just to give you an idea.

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N.B I searched the archives, but I did not find any guidelines for the above.

Related:
How about making it possible to set up bounty on someone else's question?

How does the bounty system work?

A bounty being offered by another person on a question

Answer 1

Interesting question you raise.

1. The bounty benefactor is a well-known troublemaker and will (in all likelihood) award the bounty to either a low-rated or controversial answer that is biased or patently false. Once the name of the bounty benefactor disappears, the bounty will seem to have been offered by the OP themself and will appear to conflict with either the accepted answer or the most upvoted one.

This sounds like something that can be addressed (potentially after the fact) by using a custom flags to escalate this to mods. If there is any evidence of malicious behaviour by the person offering the bounty they will notice the consequences of that.

2. The benefactor has openly expressed political views which are in sharp contrast with the OP's.

It's the internet, we all have views. But we should learn to tolerate others. whether or not I like pineapple on my pizza shouldn't be of any influence towards the bounties I wish to offer. If someone else can't be tolerant of the fact I like pineapple on my pizza and chose to offer a bounty on their question, well their in for some tough luck, as that is just how the system works.

3. The OP is perfectly happy with the answers received and feels the bounty is pointless.

That could very well be, but then you are not grasping the intention of the network. It is not so much about the needs of OP as about the desire to create a repository of high quality questions and answers. If someone feels there are better answers then are currently given, one is free to offer a bounty on that question.

4. The OP is now deeply embarrassed by their on-topic question (for whatever reason) and prefers that question to quietly "disappear" from view.

That is what happens when you share things on the internet, they tend to stay around forever. If one is truly embarrassed by a post, they can request post disassociation.

5. This is the third or fourth bounty offered by the same user. Enough is enough!

That depends, maybe the user just has a habit of handing out bounties on a specific niche tag, where you have happened to post a lot of questions. Otherwise if you feel like another user is singling you out, have a chat with the moderators.

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So as to conclude, I don't see any single good reason to disallow the placing of bounties. In the exceptional cases where it turns into problems we have our exception handlers, who are perfectly equipped to deal with these kind of situations.

Answer 2

There is not a lot the OP can do themselves directly. However, Moderators can clear/refund the bounties (also mentioned in the FAQ entry on bounties) if they think it is a correct action.

To determine whether clearing the bounty is a correct and required action, it is probably needed to have a case-specific discussion on the per-site Meta. In some cases (offensive bounty message, other types of bounty abuse) no discussion is necessary. But the case you describe is quite different from the first glance. I would not clear the bounty right away without discussing it with the community on Meta and fellow community moderators.

Generally, if one has evidence that the bounty is awarded not in good faith it is a good idea to cancel/refund it. While in some cases it is obvious, there is certainly some grey zone, where the case you are describing might fall, depending on the details. In most cases, awarding bounties to other people's questions is a fair game. So, I would suggest for the OP to start a Meta discussion.

NB: some communities might have additional policies/practices that might affect specific cases.

Answer 3

First of all, by posting a question you know that it becomes part of a community-curated Q&A library. That can mean that even when you are satisfied with the answers so far, other users may post new answers/comments (causing notifications you'd like to ignore) or, in some cases, other users posting bounties because they are not satisfied yet.

I'm not trying to give a complete answer to all these interesting cases, but here are some thoughts:

1. ... the bounty will seem to have been offered by the OP themself

That may be an assumption by users who don't fully know how the bounty system works; if you hover over the '+50' label you'll see who offered it. The OP isn't responsible for upvotes to bad answers to their question either.

2. The benefactor has openly expressed political views which are in sharp contrast with the OP's.

That shouldn't be a problem, I guess, unless said views are in the bounty message? Those are clearly attributed to the bountier; if they're toxic in any way, you can flag the post for moderator attention.

3. The OP is perfectly happy with the answers received and feels the bounty is pointless.

See my introduction; that's part of the deal when you post your question here

4. The OP is now deeply embarrassed by their on-topic question (for whatever reason) and prefers that question to quietly "disappear" from view.

5. This is the third or fourth bounty offered by the same user. Enough is enough!

I can imagine that; it might be a good reason to ask for post disassociation. That also helps in avoiding the inbox notifications.