This is valid concern. Bounties might need to have an additional status to avoid multiple people working on the same bounty. Might suggest:
  • Open: active bounty waiting for a user to claim
  • Claimed: user informs @k00b that he will complete bounty in X days. If not completed in timeframe then status reverts back to Open.
  • Paid
I agree it's a problem, but that solution creates the problem giving anyone the right to prevent everyone else from working on a bounty without any cost to them or test of credibility.
A middle of the road approach might allow people to signal that they're working on a bounty in a special kind of comment and comment section, and anyone else who might work on the bounty can fully gauge the risk of also working on it.
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I like the transparency of seeing who else might be working on a bounty.
Just brainstorming:
Maybe a user pledges Sats to Claim the right to work on bounty. Highest bidder is awarded the status of Claimed. Once completed they receive bounty plus sats pledged.
If they don’t complete the bounty they lose sats and Claim goes to second highest bid.
Users would bid high on bounties they are confident that match skills and can complete.
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That probably ideal game theoretically. It's putting up a bond.
It does introduce new problems: complicated UX and makes having sats a prereq. I'm not sure SN's bounty economy is ready for that, but it's probably the terminal state of a healthy bounty economy.
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"Pledging sats" would mean you would need to already have money in order to earn money... (And it is difficult to find work for Bitcoin recently.)
For what it's worth, if I see that someone else has started to work on the bounty, I cancel my attempt.
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