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I just found the question " What does "lo" in "(no) lo es" refer to? " Originally asked in November 2011, answered the same day; rather eloquently (could be a very good canonical answer)... except it has no English version and the question was originally asked in English

Suddenly 6 years later it's resurrected with a +50 bounty. Is that possible at all (or rather, how is it possible because it evidently was possible to do)?

Is the lack of an English translation of the excellent answer the reason for the bounty being offered? or is the answer patently wrong and none of us could tell? (shame on us).

If so, please specify whether this is the case or the reason for the bounty... My curiosity was piqued in the extreme.

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    I'm tempted to edit to delete that necro-posting tag and retagging with bounty or something more relevant for this question. I don't see many people in the future figuring out by themselves that there is a "necro-posting" tag or its meaning and intended use.
    – Diego Mod
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 1:41
  • By all means, go ahead :) is just old internet slang. Very orthodox now days.. you'll find all sorts of reputable sources defining necroposting. I'll be the first to admit that there should be a gentler way to refer to that practice ttps://www.google.com.mx/search?q=necroposting&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=9mjNWqKaOLPa8wf64LKgBQ
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 1:48

2 Answers 2

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See What is a bounty? How can I start one? to learn more about bounties. Basically bounties are used to draw attention to a question. Which questions are eligible (for a bounty)?

The question needs to be older than 48 hours.

The question should not have a bounty already.

There are other factors. You can not have more that three open bounties at a given time. Also, if a question is closed you can not set a bounty (you can not write a new answer for a closed question, so offering a bounty does not make sense).

In addition to drawing attention to a question, bounties can be used for other things, like rewarding a particularly good answer.

This is actually what you see when you are starting a bounty:

enter image description here (first step)

enter image description here (second step)

So, as you can see, it doesn't matter if the question is really old to set a bounty. You can set a bounty to "resuscitate" that question if you think that is needed (to get an answer of the question doesn't have one, better answers if it does and/or rewarding an existing answer).

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  • I understand the principle, and the incentive to come up with above average answers when na bounty is not involved. It just struck me as odd that it would be possible to open a bounty a) on a post 7 years old b) a question with an accepted answer and c) not the bounty-setters question
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 2:02
  • Too many assumption s on my part I guess (sorry to repeat myself my microbic keyboard seems intent on finishing the posts before I do. it
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 2:05
  • Well, as discussed, age (of the question) is not a factor. It could have a (lame) accepted answer that you think it is not very good (accepting the answer is the privilege of the original poster, the community can just support/endorse its value via voting), then you set a bounty to get more and better authoritative answers for that question. I don't understand the not the bounty-setters question. Also, I forgot to mention (about rewarding answers) that we currently have a best answer nominations contest.
    – Diego Mod
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 2:16
  • Yes, I always thought (for no reason I guess) that you could only set bounties on your own questions. And as such setting a bounty in somebody else's question (me being the bounty-setter and an unrelated 3r party would be the author of the question and also be a member of the "not the bounty-setter" class.. however it does make more sense in the context of "wealth" users (in rep) redistributing such wealthy in a manner that benefits the community: incentivizng better answers not necessarily to your own.. It's an excercise (intentional or not) on the developers part to experience altruism.
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 2:22
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    I think it's a great way to promote constructive participation. in my own case I was mostly a lurker, and it wasn't until I got awarded a +150 bounty that I became really engaged and started investing more time in this and other communities. (Cfr my rep graph) so I can attest to the effectivebess if such incentives
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 2:26
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Here's what I put in the bounty notice:

This could be a canonical question! The issue of the redundant object pronoun comes up a lot (both direct and indirect). This question is a good candidate for a canonical question because it's the direct case -- a bit easier to deal with than the indirect. Please help me choose a solid answer, or write a new one if none of these deserves the bounty.

I find it difficult to close duplicate questions, and I think it will be easier for me to provide constructive votes to close if we have a set of commonly asked questions, or canonical questions. I've been finding it tough to select the questions for this special set, though, because it's so tempting to write too much about a topic when thinking in terms of making a canonical Q&A. So I've been thinking that the success of a canonical question depends on the question being sufficiently granular, i.e., self-contained. I thought that this one might work well for the issue that so many beginners have, of the apparently redundant object article.

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  • I agree on the issue of granularity. My concern is disparaging new, eager user's by shutting down their quesrion. I'd be in favour of relaxing that rule a bit and allow the ocassiobal and non-egregious duplicate, that may provide a new angle or take on the way the old question was answered. The gains are threefold: new users are encouraged to participate, we old timers get to think again and see activity on the site, and the whole site wins richness in examples and variety, becoming so much more useful. It's not like a researcher has to exert a lot of effort and do 2 queries now days, I guess.
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:45
  • *also finding out that your pet subject and the one you just know you can get some rep with, being a new new user, has been exhausted in answers from 5 years ago.. n.n
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:47
  • @hlecuanda - That's an interesting point of view. Here's some food for thought: Have you noticed, there are quite a few Q&A's from the early days of this site that are not up to our current quality standards?
    – aparente001
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 19:01
  • That is true, but given the triple win opportunity here, by relaxing the duplicate rule a wee bit, has advantages that are too important to ignore. By allowing noobs to give a new perspective on old questions or coming up with new angles on old questions. I also suspect there is a huge wealth of rep in too few users, while few questions ever get upvoted beyond 4. I'll do some data crunching eight Google's datastudio as soon as I have some time, cuz I may have a bunch but data does not lie :) a
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 19:11
  • See ¿Qué preguntas canónicas tenemos? What are the canonical answers we've discovered over the years?.
    – fedorqui Mod
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 20:52
  • @hlecuanda - Oh shoot, I just realized that question might not be such a great candidate for a canonical or common question after all, because it's so focused on word order in the sentence.
    – aparente001
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 3:53
  • It did serve the purpose of raising a couple of issues about new members and rule elasticity (n.n )
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 3:55
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    @hlecuanda - I am starting to change my thinking and come around to your way of thinking about increasing traffic to the site by relaxing the general SE standards. Here's a related post: spanish.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2491/9385 (esp. point 2).
    – aparente001
    Commented Apr 13, 2018 at 12:25
  • I'm glad to hear that. I suspect there is a point to be made about voting patterns also, but in order to make a good case I need to crunch then data, otherwise it's not a case, but just an opinion. Lately, work has distracted me from this and other worthy endeavours. I hope this weekend allows me to dust off the (data-) mining rig and do some "pretty pics" that either confirm my hunch (there is such a pattern) or prove it wrong, and perhaps some additional insight (whether it is a bad or a *good thing*™)
    – hlecuanda
    Commented Apr 13, 2018 at 17:05

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