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I often realize that I want to place a bounty on a question, but already have a bounty in place. So far three simultaneous bounties have been allowed, but I find I forget many times which questions I wanted to feature with a new bounty, when one of my old bounties is done. A bigger problem for me actually now is the two day wait; I know I will want to bounty a question because I'm either not getting an answer (non-Meta), or will want to draw attention to the question (Meta).

Could we get the ability to queue up a bounty so that when our one bounty is awarded the next takes its place?

I would think we'd want some kind of confirmation in case our mind has changed, maybe it would cancel if a new answer is added. Even a queue just to send us a reminder would be nice.

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Honestly, this sounds like a real edge case. The only time I've ever seen one person post multiple bounties on a question, it was a case of abuse; the person doing it was the author of the library that the question was a subject of, and he just wanted to get more visibility for his library. –  Robert Harvey Jun 26 '11 at 20:27
@Robert, Well, as per the link I put on there which has 19 upvotes, it's not completely an edge case. For myself, this is usually a Meta problem, but I can see others needed to highlight multiple programming questions. –  Lance Roberts Jun 26 '11 at 20:31
You could add a comment to the active bountied question to the effect: "Next bounty will be on: LINK". That even gets publicity before the bounty starts. –  Rick Sladkey Jun 26 '11 at 20:32
Bounties are for pressing questions you really need an answer to: if you forget about a question, does it really need a bounty? This sounds like making bounties into contests or sweepstakes. –  user149432 Jun 26 '11 at 22:34
@Mark, I realize you may not understand this in particular, but some of us have really crappy memories. I have to compensate for this all the time. I'm just asking for a little help. Think of it as a handicap, I do. –  Lance Roberts Jun 26 '11 at 22:44
I'm kinda neutral on this - I would much rather see the limitation on multiple bounties lifted. @Mark urgent questions are not the only thing one might place a bounty on. I've made it a habit to place a bounty on pretty much every question of mine that I felt could profit from some more love - without necessarily needing the results as such. Being able to place multiple bounties, or even queueing bounties as suggested here would be a help organizing that –  Pëkka Jun 26 '11 at 22:52
Alternatively (and more general), a "tagged favorites" system would be nice, where you can write to each favorite of your's a personal tag (like "to bounty", here), and can sort/filter your favorites by these personal tags. Then one can implement this queue oneself. –  Paŭlo Ebermann Jun 26 '11 at 23:29

2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted

It seems like it's not going to happen, but I think it's a great feature request. In the programming world, it's hard to prioritize things. So hard, in fact, that some things seem to just be on the same level (urgent).

While I don't see how it would be a problem to get publicity for multiple questions, other people seem to have an unstated reason for which it would be a problem.

My solution: use gmail.

You should create a tag, "bounty", in your e-mail inbox and filter messages from stack overflow with 'urgent' or 'bounty' in the title. Then, you can change the title of the messages you want to put in your bounty queue as you realize them. When you feel you have forgotten which was important to you, go to your inbox, update the filter, and click 'apply to selected conversations'. I've been using this system with wonderful success to manage my projects and my messages from various sites.

Alternatively, you could include the information in one of your design notebooks, if you use those. Design notebooks are wonderful for people who have terrible memories. I have a terrible memory, and I use the notebooks to keep track of my projects. I use a multi-color pen. I use a 'style sheet', rather than a 'key', because it's so efficient. I use a lot of database terminology, and of course, I use links. I always go in order: design, namespace, usage example, stylesheet, database info, resources page. Then, I move on to the next design.

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I can see a reason to allow only 1 bounty on your question. But what about offering bounties to other people questions. I was in situation this week I wanted to offer a bounty to 2 questions of other users, while I have a bounty on my own question. Let me explain:

When I'm asking a question, this is something I have to do, something that stops my work or just something I can't sleep because of. It's normal behavior that I'll search for an answer and not just wait for it, so there's no reason I would leave several questions with bounties, or maybe I can set priority for myself. Also, this is the case when bounty can be abused.

But when I see other people's question, that is interesting for me as a professional, I favorite it in order to be notified for answers. It's not a problem I'm facing, so I do not spend any time trying to resolve it (actually in the cases I've put a bounty on other person's question, I've tried to help him but found the problem is outside my expertise, so I've wanted to increase my field of expertise, but the problem was not related to my work, so I can spend extra hours on it). So there is no question, I'm curious about the answer, and I want to help to the other person (after all, if he don't receive answer on SO he, can leave). In this case, IMO, setting bounty should be allowed. So my suggestion is to put the bounty limit to 1 question per user, asking a question, and not per user, offering a bounty

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