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After careful reading of the following paragraph read as part of What is a bounty? :

Additionally, if you offer multiple bounties on the same question, the minimum spend doubles with each subsequent bounty (50 reputation on the first bounty, 100 reputation on the second, 200 on the third, and so on).

I am left with two questions :

If I have already (in the past) offered a 50 bounty, on a question of my own and, because the question received no answer, that bounty was not awarded (even the half of its value)
If I want to reoffer a new bounty on that same question, will the minimum amount be doubled ?

If I want to offer a bounty in order to reward an existing answer on a question (from another user) for which a bounty had been explicitly awarded in the past (by the other user), will my own new bounty need to be two times the amount of the preceding one ?

EDIT : Following muru's answer, I add the feature-request tag :

  • the reason for offering a bounty (rewarding existing answer vs others) should be taken into account when deciding on the doubling feature. Amount offered should be free of whatever consideration when rewarding an existing answer !

In the (more than realistic since it is happening to me) case I have offered (in the past) a bounty on one question of mine and awarded a bounty on one answer.
Well after that, another user posts some indeed valuable answer. I do would like to reward this work BUT, as I understand, needing to double the amount. This would just be unfair (compared to the other credited answer).

EDIT after fra-san's valuable objection :

I expect abusing to the expense of one's own credit to be the fact of a very limited amount of strange users. This will anyway & in any case & necessarily come, at some point to, some mathematically predictable & definitive end.
Definitive end… unless the user keeps earning credits… this meaning that the user contribution is valuable for the whole community… In which case… who can condemn the way that (valuable) user spends its credit ?
Moreover believing that sort of abuse rare, I think it could just easily be handled by some basic bot of the like of the one capable to detect abuses in downvoting.

That does not, IMHO, pay for possible unfairness, (in the particular case of rewarding an existing answer) At least will I stand with ancient latin adage : Abusus non tollit usum.

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  • If it was me, I'd try starting the bounty process and see what it listed as the minimum (and then cancel out).
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Jul 31, 2022 at 15:46
  • @JeffSchaller : Being asserted that I do appreciate your valuable contributation here and around… Could I say… Hmmm… would I share the same amount of confidence as you do on the software running… not to say, as you, 20 times the amount I can afford… I would follow you ! Indeed ! risking 2x500 ! ;-P
    – MC68020
    Jul 31, 2022 at 16:04
  • Good point! I switch between trusting software and distrusting software :) it's also been a while since I offered a bounty, and can't spend time to search Meta at the moment. Glad you got an answer!
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Jul 31, 2022 at 16:41
  • About your feature request: the requirement of doubling the minimum spend when offering subsequent bounties on the same question was added with the aim of preventing abuse, adding an exception for a specific bounty reason would defeat that.
    – fra-san
    Jul 31, 2022 at 21:15
  • Thanks @fra-san for your valuable contribution, I updated my question.
    – MC68020
    Jul 31, 2022 at 22:35
  • Note that the “preventing abuse” angle is addressing potential abuse on SO, which sees vastly more voting than Unix.SE. Recouping a 50 point “investment” on SO would be easy; here it would be quite a bit harder (unless the post hits HNQ, but that’s also unlikely here in scenarios where this specific bounty abuse would be useful).
    – Stephen Kitt
    Aug 4, 2022 at 12:27
  • @StephenKitt : I acknowledge I did not know the reason why this doubling requirement was implemented. And I agree with you… I never recovered my (for the time low) investment on whatever bounty I offered. No problem since… it was of course not my intention. BTW my point remains : Abusus non tollit usum. Find ways to fight those who abuse of some facility other than removing the feature for eveybody.
    – MC68020
    Aug 4, 2022 at 13:05
  • @StephenKitt : I mean, If I do want to reward two answers at the same value AND to the cost of infringing policies… then well… il feel intelligent enough to open a new question worded so that… It will take more than two days for getting closed duplicate. I sync with the second poster and… reward everybody equally. But… I just hate that.
    – MC68020
    Aug 4, 2022 at 13:10

1 Answer 1

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For the first question, note that when it comes to repeated bounties, neither the quoted section nor the FAQ entry for bounties talk about the amount awarded - they talk about the amount offered. So, no, what amount was actually awarded (if any) does not affect what you'll have to pony up for your next bounty on the same question.

For the second question, the FAQ entry linked above addresses this:

This doubling applies only to bounties by the same user on the same question.

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  • 1
    Thanks @muru : As for the second question, I acknowledge that I had not a correct understanding of offering a bounty in order to reward an existing answer. I realize that despite offering a bounty in order to reward an existing answer, you still offer a bounty… on the question.
    – MC68020
    Jul 31, 2022 at 16:33

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