[neilk]

It would be great if others could attach bounties to certain patents. Of course then the patent examiner would have to pick "winners", answers that helped the most.

Also, like Quora, does the StackExchange system allow one to register one's fields of expertise, to have questions suggested to you? (I'm not a big participant on SE but I know it may be hiding that feature from me, because it slowly reveals features based on karma).

Anyway I'm sure this has been thought of before, just curious if it's on the todo list.

[ReidZB]

StackExchange has a "favorite tags" feature which will highlight specific tags on the front page (and for busier sites, it may even bias its display on them, though I'm not sure about that).

There is also an advanced "filters" functionality (visible at stackexchange.com/filters) which apparently lets you filter out all but certain tags, as well as have 15-minute/3-hour/daily emails with new questions in that tag. I have never used it, but it sounds like what you're aiming for.

[cruise02]

You can post bounties on Stack Exchange if you have enough reputation to cover it. Whoever posts the bounty (not necessarily the patent examiner) gets to pick who wins the bounty. If they don't, it can be automatically awarded to the highest-scoring answer during the bounty period (one week). More details: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/16065/how-does-the-b...