Where to put bounty information?

Question

Sparked by a chat discussion about this question, I think we should think of a way to put some order to bounty information.

What information is interesting?

Sometimes, one would like to include information as to what is expected from an answer for it to gain a bounty, or state reasons for the bounty, or announce a bounty yet to come (which just can't be placed at that point).

All of these are valuable information when "advertising" a bounty.

Discuss

1. Should we allow such advertisements about bounties, and to what extent?
2. Where should this information be put, and how should it be indicated?

What I'd like to see here is a clear way in which we should deal with such meta-information within the Q&A, while it has nothing to do with the question itself - even if that way is just "leave it be".

Answer 1

Just put it in the bounty box

There!

Should we allow such advertisements about bounties, and to what extent? Where should this information be put, and how should it be indicated?

So, to me, this seems already present in the system and such information should not belong in the body of the question.

If you feel this field is too limited in terms of revising, formatting, etc., then this should be a feature request on MSO. I do think this message could be improved in terms of visual attention. Its fixed formatting is currently easily overlooked.

Answer 2

I am giving two separate answers to this, because I deem both viable, and I can't precisely say which of the two I'd prefer - much less if the community agrees with either.

Put it in the comments

Essentially, information about the bounty is meta-information. It has nothing to do with the question itself, so it shouldn't be part of the question. The bounty remarks, on the other hand, can't be changed afterwards at all, vanishes automatically and can't be responded to directly, so they feel insufficient for that.

Essentially, I'd like to see a comment at the beginning, stating something like this:

This question will get a bounty of 250 reputation once a clear answer detailing X and why not Y, is needed.

Then, if there were questions about the meta-information, these could become part of a subsequent conversation in the comments.

Answer 3

I am giving two separate answers to this, because I deem both viable, and I can't precisely say which of the two I'd prefer - much less if the community agrees with either.

Put it into the question itself

A dedicated bloc of text, perhaps at the end of the question (example below), could be constantly edited, sufficiently separated and have proper formatting, as opposed to comments or the bounty remarks.

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This question will receive a bounty of 50 reputation!

However, we need an answer that contains all of the following:

1. A step-by-step manual how to do this.
2. Sources for further reading.
3. Kittens.
4. Optionally, screenshots for the steps.

The bounty will be awarded to an existing answer, to avoid it running out beforehand.