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This Stack Exchange site is a very welcoming place to all kinds of questions. People usually do their best to help (not like Stack Overflow) and I would like to pay something back to the community. Sadly, I am not good or smart enough to be the one giving the perfect answers.

When someone answers my question and I think that the answer is brilliant, what can I do to promote the answer or to reward the author?

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    $\begingroup$ Upvote it, accept it, or make a bounty. Or better, just leave a comment for the answerer explaining how well the answer addressed your question and expressing your gratitude. I think that most users (especially those who value teaching over points) would view that as far more gratifying than a bounty. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Nov 19 '18 at 19:32
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    $\begingroup$ Related (to some extent): Is it ok to use bounty for rewarding an answerer? $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Nov 19 '18 at 19:46
  • $\begingroup$ I wouldn't suggest this as a way of rewarding an answerer per se but given that you are mentioning the question in meta, you might also link the question in your meta post in which case users there may take an interest and vote accordingly, and the reward will be automatic. $\endgroup$ – samerivertwice Nov 22 '18 at 10:06
  • $\begingroup$ And you're saying that Stack Overflow is not welcoming? :/ (if you post a question not related to math here it won't be welcoming) $\endgroup$ – user202729 Nov 29 '18 at 5:55
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As others have mentioned, bounties are Stack Exchange's tool for this purpose. Placing a bounty costs some reputation, but it will have the following effect:

  • The question is immediately bumped to the top of the active question list.
  • The question gets placed in the home page's featured tab for seven days.

both of which attract more visitors who (potentially) will upvote the answer (and as a side-effect, perhaps your question as well?). A week later, you can 'award' the bounty to that answer (you can even do it earlier if you like, but then it won't be featured anymore) and the author of the answer will gain the reputation you've invested in the bounty.

While most bounties are placed in search for a new/better answer[citation needed], one of the predefined reasons for a bounty is

Reward existing answer

One or more of the answers is exemplary and worthy of an additional bounty.

so this is absolutely fine.

As an alternative, you can link to the answer in e.g. your profile page, on social media or on other Mathematics sites on the Internet (local rules may apply).

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