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In general, rep gain and loss for questions and answers that are deleted is gone - it's as though the questions and answers never existed.

  • How does this work in relation to questions where a bounty is placed on them, and awarded?

My guess is that everything reverts - the question asker gets their bounty rep back, and the awarded answerer has their bounty removed (both changes only occur on a rep recalc, though).

Not sure what made me wonder about this, but now I'm curious, and am thinking that if no one knows (or is willing to divulge) the answer, then a test ought to be done.

It's also yet another reason to avoid frivolous bounties...

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Is it possible to delete a bounty question while the bounty is running? Obviously there would have to be no upvoted answers (or whatever the rules are). –  mmyers Apr 21 '10 at 20:03
No harm in testing it. Someone will end up with that reputation either way. –  Grace Note Apr 21 '10 at 20:05
What happens if the question is closed while there's a bounty? Maybe we should find that out first? –  Jon Seigel Apr 21 '10 at 20:08
Last time I checked you couldn't delete or close bounty questions unless you were a diamond moderator, or through use of offensive flags. But I think that may have changed in the last year... –  Adam Davis Apr 21 '10 at 20:10
I wish we could rescind close votes so this could be tested without impact. It appears I can still vote to close a question with a bounty. –  Jon Seigel Apr 21 '10 at 20:12
Non-diamond-mods still can't close bounty questions, at least during the bounty period. I've tried recently on SF. Instance of where the OP put a bounty on it so that it didn't get migrated... –  squillman Apr 21 '10 at 20:16
Oopsie. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/38819/… (my own question) (for shame...) –  Jon Seigel Apr 21 '10 at 20:23
@Jon - ah, a migrated question isn't much different than a deleted question. –  Adam Davis Apr 21 '10 at 20:39
@Pollyanna Unfortunately, someone appears to have upvoted your test... –  Grace Note Apr 22 '10 at 13:42
@ccomet - Such is life. I've edited it so they can undo the vote if they wish. –  Adam Davis Apr 22 '10 at 13:50
You forgot the bounty on this question, Pollyanna. –  BalusC Apr 22 '10 at 13:57
Well, all is well that ends well. We got an answer, even if the test fell through! –  Grace Note Apr 22 '10 at 13:58

3 Answers 3

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Accepted bounty questions cannot be deleted, regardless of any upvotes. Please see How does the bounty system work?

Jeff made this by design to avoid gaming the system.

What happens if a bounty question is closed, or deleted as offensive?

Bounty questions cannot be closed. However, diamond moderators can cancel or refund a bounty, which would then allow it to be closed or deleted.

Further, the question Why can’t we close questions with bounties? has more information:

The moderators have a menu to remove / refund the bounty, so this is no longer an issue. Flag such things for moderator attention as the moderators have all the tools necessary to deal with this now.

So the answer is:

  • Bounty questions (either in process, or already accepted) CANNOT be deleted
  • Moderators can either refund or remove the bounty so that the question may then be deleted.
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Uh oh, I think you've found a flaw in my plan! I'll have to look that up. –  Adam Davis Apr 22 '10 at 13:50
I think moderators can delete, regardless of any status. –  YOU Apr 22 '10 at 13:50
@Pollyanna: i deleted your question without removing the bounty. i wonder if it got refunded automatically (the deleted question no longer shows the bounty attached). –  quack quixote Apr 22 '10 at 14:20
It might require that rep-recalc to follow through before this can be identified. –  Grace Note Apr 22 '10 at 14:26
@Quack - If you do a rep recalc on my account, we can see what the default action is when a moderator deletes a bounty question. –  Adam Davis Apr 22 '10 at 14:28
@Polly: i just watched it jump from 12.9 to 14.6. k. ...????? how much of a bounty did you put on that thing?? –  quack quixote Apr 22 '10 at 14:48
@quack - shifty eyes ... enough ... –  Adam Davis Apr 22 '10 at 15:28

I don't think that is the case.

I think that the rep is lost for the OP, and the rep is retained by the accepted answer poster.

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What makes you think that? Ideally that would be the case, but I have no evidence one way or the other. –  Adam Davis Apr 21 '10 at 20:03
@Pollyanna: because I think that you can't even delete them. There are two choices, and this one seems to be the most reasonable. The only ones that can answer definitely are the ones in The Team. I think that the bounties are denormalized enough that they wouldn't be affected by the deletion of the awarding question. –  perbert Apr 21 '10 at 20:17
They can't even be closed: This question has an open bounty and cannot be closed (click on this box to dismiss) –  perbert Apr 21 '10 at 20:19
I would hope that this is the case. Otherwise you could renege on the bounty once you have the answer you want without giving up the rep. –  JohnFx Apr 21 '10 at 20:23
@JohnFx - But you'd still have to get 5 people to agree, unless none of the answers were voted up. But yes, that is one of the reasons I'm asking. –  Adam Davis Apr 21 '10 at 20:39

I got 2 bounties from you, you can try to test that out by asking moderators to delete that.

accepted bounty

Script to remove useless SO content

half auto accepted bounty

There should be a minimum time between placing and accepting a bounty

and my rep report is like this now

-- 2010-04-21 rep +134 = 3527
2 47383 (10)
2 47460 (10)
2 47460 (10)
** total rep 3557 (+0) :-)
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