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I saw this question today: A Topology such that the continuous functions are exactly the polynomials

Franklin.vp almost used up two thirds of his today reputation to offer this bounty, it is pretty a bummer for him if there is no nice answer popping up in 7 days. For this question, which looks like not an easy problem to me though I am not by any means an expert in algebraic topology, I wonder if there is any mechanism to offer a bounty with much longer period.

Another example came into my mind was this question: Probability that a stick randomly broken in five places can form a tetrahedron

Should a more flexible bounty system be introduced to MSE? Like with 5k rep you can offer a bounty up to a month, and with 10k rep you can offer bounty up to half a year.

EDIT: I did a search and saw Jeff Atwood's answer here: Is the time scale for bounties too short on stack exchange? I certain do not agree with him on point 3, at least bounty makes the question in the featured tab and gets the question more exposure over a long period of time.

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    $\begingroup$ Reposting the queston on Mathoverflow after the bounty expires might be a more effective way to get the question answered in this particular case. $\endgroup$
    – Michael Greinecker
    Commented Jun 28, 2013 at 8:39
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelGreinecker Hmm, makes sense, esp now the question can be directly migrated to MO w/o reposting. $\endgroup$
    – Shuhao Cao
    Commented Jun 28, 2013 at 16:40
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    $\begingroup$ Note that there is another 24 hours limit after bounty expiration before it actually has to be awarded. It's not much, but better than nothing... $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 14:42

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I don't believe it is too short. Well, actually one of my bounties just ran through the week without someone writing an answer to it.
In my opinion making the bounties lasting longer there will be (at least I expect it) much more questions in the featured tab, which makes it less attractive for someone to offer a bounty, because there will be less extra attention because of the bounty.
On the other hand a short lasting bounty is maybe a motivation to spend more time in a short interval on the question.

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    $\begingroup$ Well maybe there should be two kinds of bounty - one 7 day "feature me" bounty, and another "until answered" incentive without time limitation $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 14:39
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I don't think bounty rules will be changed any time soon, but I don't think that's really a problem:

  1. You can just post a comment saying that you offer N rep bounty for answer to this question (and after question gets a useful answer you can technically start a bounty and quickly award it).

  2. ...And you can keep a question in featured tab for one month paying 750 rep (less than 20% of that 5k); keeping it there indefinitely is much more expensive (500 rep / week), but I'm not sure that would be a good idea anyway.

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    $\begingroup$ Regarding 2, the price is higher: it will quickly reach 500/week. If a user already offered a bounty of $x$ points on a question, their next bountry of that question must be for at least $\min(2x,500)$ points. Source $\endgroup$
    – ˈjuː.zɚ79365
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 23:18
  • $\begingroup$ @ˈjuː.zɚ79365 Oh, you're right. $\endgroup$
    – Grigory M
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 23:20

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