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At the occasion of this question, but there are many, many more examples where I notice a question which is bountied, but still a straightforward dupe. We then have to wait seven days to actually mark it as a dupe, for reasons of, I guess, not letting OP waste his or her bounty.

Existing dupe questions are sometimes difficult to find, and it is not by definition because of a lack of research that OP did not find the previous question/answer. On multiple occasions, I requested a moderator to refund OP for his or her bounty in obvious cases. Without exception, this was indeed allowed. This makes me think:

Why should we keep the rule that a bountied question cannot be marked as a dupe?

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    It's not a rule. Flag it for a mod and we'll take a look. It's a system limitation regarding how the reputation for bounties gets moved around. The rep has to go somewhere if it gets closed. And oftentimes someone bounties their question because they can't find an answer elsewhere (although this is obviously not always the case).
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 18:18
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    @Seth: that's not a comment... That's an answer... :-)
    – Fabby
    Commented Jan 28, 2018 at 22:11
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    I've flagged these on occasion, but when my flags are denied, I'm more hesitant to flag again and will typically do something similar (although hopefully more detailed) to what this member did. Answer with a nod toward the duplicate and/or other sources of information that could/should have been found with a minimum of effort. I would flag more often if I got the impression it was well received.
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Feb 2, 2018 at 22:16
  • Title is a double negative s/b "We should allow marking bountied question as a dupe"
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:14
  • @Seth "The rep has to go somewhere if it gets closed." I beg to differ. I've won 50% of bounties on a few occasions due to up-votes but not being accepted by bounty offerer. I've got 0% of bounty with only 1 up-vote and bounty offerer not accepting. So bounties can disappear and rep doesn't have to circulate. That said I don't think we should close bounties as dupes.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:20
  • ^^^ Unless as Jacob mentions the bounty is returned to OP. If closed as a dupe after bounty is awarded then OP can feel suitably embarrassed and paid the price for not doing due diligence of google it.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:29

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