What happens to bounty points that are not awarded?

Question

If a bounty is set and only one answer is given: when the bounty is not awarded what happens to the bounty? Does the only answer get the bounty despite it not being accepted assuming the answer is right?

Answer 1

what happens to the bounty

Bounty amount goes

Does the only answer get the bounty despite it not being accepted assuming the answer is right

No.

But then what if the user does not log in within that period to check the answer??

Refer fossfreedom's answer.

And plus what if the bounty has been offered by someone who edited the post and not by the actual user who questioned

Doesn't matter, it's the same.

I am talking about this one-askubuntu.com/questions/134577

• If Eliah doesn't login and award the bounty & you don't get a score of 2, you won't get the bounty.
• If Eliah doesn't login & your answer get a score of 2, you get half the bounty.
• If Eliah accepts your answer but doesn't login, after the bounty period +24 hours, you get the full bounty.

Answer 2

If your answer was given in the bounty period and it has earned 2 upvotes but it was not accepted, then after the bounty period has ended + 24 hours, you will receive half of the bounty.

This automatic mechanism is useful for where there is a good answer as recognised by the community but the bounty offerer has not themselves manually offered the bounty:

• Let's say the bounty offerer did not come back in the 7 days - the community mechanism takes care of this issue.

• Let's say the bounty offerer did not think the answer given was the answer they were looking for - again this community mechanism recognizes the effort put into the answer

The bounty offerer and the original poster does not have to be the same - the bounty offerer has the "control" on this. Thus, if the OP never revisits their question, its up-to the bounty offerer to either manually give you the bounty, or yourself to give a great answer that persuades everyone else to upvote you.

If you did not receive more than 2 upvotes, then the bounty will not be awarded.

More info about the bounty system can be found:

How does the bounty system work?