A bounty is a feature designed to motivate answerers and make questions get the answers they deserve. You may choose to slice off a bit of your own hard-earned reputation -- anywhere from 50 to 500 -- and attach it to the question as a bounty. Stack Overflow throws in an additional 50 points to sweeten the deal.

The bountied question will appear with a special icon in all question lists, and it will also be visible on the home page Featured tab. Question are listed in descending expiration order; thus, the bounties about to expire will naturally be on top.

You may offer a bounty two days after you ask a question, if the question does not have an accepted answer. You must have at least 100 reputation to offer a bounty.

To offer a bounty, click on the "start a bounty" link at the bottom of your question. The bounty panel will open. Use the slider to establish a reputation bounty on this question anywhere between 50 and 500 reputation in 50 point increments. (Yes, you must have at least as much reputation as the bounty amount.)

Your rep will be reduced when you start the bounty - not when you award it. This prevents, for instance, starting more than two 500+ point bounties when you only have 1,000 rep, and other methods of gaming the system.

A bounty lasts 1 week = 7 days.

To award the correct answer you simply accept the answer as you normally would. A bounty accepted answer is permanent and cannot be undone. The traditional accepted answer check is “glowing” to indicate that this is a special kind of accept. Note: if you accept your own answer, the bounty is still subtracted from your reputation.