# What do I do if I have a bounty active, the answer is from an inactive user, but is mostly right minus a major edit?

I currently have a bounty active for When was the word "bias" coined to mean $\mathbb{E}[\hat{\theta}-\theta]$?.

The answer is correct, except the article that is cited is wrong, as it can be seen here. The person who wrote the answer is an unregistered user, and it's been about a week; the user is not active. I originally tried editing it (which I know is definitely frowned upon), and my edit was rejected.

What does one do in this situation? This seems similar but not identical to What to do if an accepted answer is wrong but author of accepted answer and OP are not active on CV any more? in my eyes - mainly in that there's a bounty also involved.

Here are the options that I've thought of:

• In 17 hours, the bounty will end. If someone posts an answer with the correct article title (hint hint?), I'll award it to them.
• Answer the question myself with a corrected answer, bounty goes to no one.

I don't feel comfortable awarding the existing answer the bounty or marking it as a "best answer," as comments (i.e., my comment attached to it) can be much more easily deleted than answers.

Thoughts on this?

• I think you should award the bounty to the existing answer and edit to correct/update it. I did not see your edit but I think if done well it can go through (cc @gung). Maybe use <strike></strike> or write something like Correction by @Clarinetist: etc. – amoeba Dec 11 '17 at 8:56