I have tagged this [discussion](/questions/tagged/discussion "show questions tagged 'discussion'") as I am trying to find the best way to solve this problem.

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I am aware of the [feature-request](/questions/tagged/feature-request "show questions tagged 'feature-request'") on the main meta [Explicit "do not award bounty" button](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/166172/explicit-do-not-award-bounty-button). However, this seems to be a general button for if all of the answers are crap and stop the bounty all together.

A way to fix this would be to allow a bountier to stop a specific answer from being awarded the bounty. Obviously the bounty should never be refunded. I can think of 2 ways to solve this:

1. If the bountier downvotes an answer the system shouldn't let the bounty be awarded to that answer.
2. Add a "Do not award bounty" button to an answer to tell the system not to award a bounty to an answer.

These are my ideas, are these any good? Is there a better way?

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To address concerns with whether it has affected me, it didn't when I wrote the question but I have just found it with a recent bounty I placed.

Effectively someone has googled the topic and provided a link to a 3rd party library in another language. I have downvoted the answer and commented explaining why I think it is bad. However, since then 3 people have upvoted it and so the answer will receive the auto half bounty. This will make it look like the answer is acceptable, yet it isn't and what's more it doesn't even work.

I think we definitely need some system in place to not award bounties to answers where the bountier disagrees with them. It will need close moderation however.