I sometimes stumble upon questions where some "bonus points" are mentioned or which have some "bonus section" (see e.g. here and here, and also in answers such as here). I only found information on the "site association bonus", which appears to be something different, so I was wondering how these "bonus question parts" work, i.e. how and when they are offered/awarded.

Sorry if I overlooked some existing information on this.


I think it's just a saying of the poster, not to be taken seriously as I see there.

If the questioner would be serious about this, he could award bonus points by setting a bounty and giving it to the answerer later.

In such cases you could comment and suggest that the OP would do what he or she said and actually give bonus points via a bounty.

  • 1
    Indeed, IMHO it's just a way to say "I need 'A', and if you already on it could you also do the related 'B', but 'A' alone is fine, too" – Martin Scharrer Jul 4 '13 at 10:52
  • @MartinScharrer I think so as well, I just wish for a point based site which allows bonus points (bounty) the OP would say what you wrote, not say "bonus points" when it's not meant this way. It could be mistaken, as we can see here. – Stefan Kottwitz Jul 4 '13 at 11:52

Since one of the answers quoted is mine, I might as well add an answer.

The expression "bonus points" is used very generally in (N. American) English to ask for something extra that would be welcome but not necessarily expected. For example, if you Google "bonus points to whoever" you will find lots of hits from contexts in which no actual points are ever awarded:

  • "Bonus points to whoever gets this reference"
  • "Bonus points to whoever can sing this from memory"
  • etc.

So people will often use it here in questions if they think that part of their question is too much to ask, but they would ask anyway.

I think for native English speakers the context of these uses makes it clear that it has nothing to do with votes. (Clearly for non-native speakers not so much) :)

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