Well with the new feature that shows you if the user is online or not, this should not be a problem.
I'm not gonna stand and brag how great donating is, because im and admin here. But i've seen donators been taken more serious, and my view is that they are a bit more dedicated to the whole trading system, now there are loads that may disagree with me saying that all donators suck and bla bla bla, but this is again just how i view it, and how i always have viewd it before i became staff.

Also the autobumping feature is pretty neat even tho you are offline or online, if people want an instant deal its as simple as checking if they are online, and add em/leave a comment
But when it comes to unusual people tend to be more patient about selling and buying, so it doesnt really matter if the user is online or not, because you can leave a comment either way.

I would say it's a 50-50 split, can give you more viability but because of the reasons you mentioned some people avoid donor trades.

I, as a donor myself, tend to look for non-donors when trying to buy something because I usually want it right away and like you have had issues with donors not being online. Yes the feature saying weather someone is online or not can help, but doesn't account for people like me who forget to log out of steam at night, or before going to work 50% of the time.

report trades that autobump without reply or attention

Originally posted by Regen:

But i've seen donators been taken more serious, and my view is that they are a bit more dedicated to the whole trading system

they shouldn't be taken more seriously, but they are unfortunately.

also scammer donate to try and trick people into thinking they are trustworthy, so watch out for that

I agree with thewolf and king. Many Donors not paying attention to their trades is one reason I have not donated so far. I too prefer non-donors for a lot of trades.
But you also have the opposite, as some non-donors are trading noobs that put up a trade and never come back to the site. I've heard my fair share of "Do I know you?" after I added them.

I never made the experience that someone is not taking me seriously because I am not a donor. But that could also be, because most of my trades are for fixed prices, that I carefully choose. And a donor-rank will not protect you from the occasional idiot that can't read your notes.

Another major reason to become a donor is the number of trades you can have. For me it is enough so far and I can manage to bump my trades manually every 30 - 60 minutes while I am online. After all, if I want to trade I have to pay attention at least in that interval anyway.
But for things like unusuals and other rare items, I agree with Pretendeer, auto-bump could be useful to maximize exposure.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

I would say it's a 50-50 split, can give you more viability but because of the reasons you mentioned some people avoid donor trades.

I, as a donor myself, tend to look for non-donors when trying to buy something because I usually want it right away and like you have had issues with donors not being online. Yes the feature saying weather someone is online or not can help, but doesn't account for people like me who forget to log out of steam at night, or before going to work 50% of the time.

If it's a 50/50 that means that half the time it's good and half the time it's not so good? That's sort of how it's sounding. For unusuals or other high b/o items I agree with Regen that it provides much more exposure and people don't tend to care if it's an auto bump or not. And I also agree with Uranium that the additional trades is very useful. But It seems like, for the most part, we all agree that for quick-sells or scrap banking etc. it is actually worse. Sure you can tell who's online right now but tons of people like The Once and Future King.

Donating should never be a disadvantage in any ways. That way outpost can make lots of money because Outpost really is a great service and a great idea. I for example personally represent someone who would give outpost money if I didn't feel like it would give me a disadvantage on some levels. I'm simply not going to pay to be at a disadvantage in some ways. Also perhaps not all donors have their quick-sell trades on auto-bump for this very reason, but we can't tell that. We assume it is because they are a donor.

Right now there are 2 things keeping me from giving outpost money:

1: The donor's name should only be orange, blue etc. if that particular trade is set to auto bump. That way when we traders are looking down the list we can actually tell which trade got auto-bumped and which was manually bumped. Or there could be some other indication similar to the online symbol.

2: If donating gave a "bump all trades" button. One reason I don't want to have even more trades is that it is so difficult to go through and click every one of those little buttons while the page is refreshing. It is such a pain and if I had even more trades it would take longer. Donating should provide a single "bump all trades" button to save time. Or even better: it be a "bump all selected trades" so that if you are out of keys right now but you plan to have some later you don't bump that trade, but you bump all the rest.

In my opinion, it doesn't change much besides giving you a nice autobump. Granted, some noobs will try to avoid you, but as mentioned earlier, in the case of unusuals/things that take weeks to sell anyways, it doesn't matter.

I believe that maybe the OP should say next to the trade something like manual or auto, indicated that it was bumped manually or if the system bumped for them, giving indication of being online or not. I constantly just leave my system running while I'm not home, so I'm always online.

I also believe that, maybe, OP allow donators to flip the colors of their names. Green can still have autobumps but retain a white name, while orange can flip to green and white, and blue can traverse all three.

But that's my opinion. In a nutshell, donating is worth it for autobumps, which are worth it if you unusual trade/trade things that take weeks to sell.

I think it really only benefits unusual traders or really valuable items because there arent many of one unusual on the market and if a person wanted it he/she would only have a few to chose from. Same goes with the valuable items.

I find my normal trades have very little publicity

Originally posted by Jonyface:

I think it really only benefits unusual traders or really valuable items because there arent many of one unusual on the market and if a person wanted it he/she would only have a few to chose from. Same goes with the valuable items.

I find my normal trades have very little publicity

I'd mainly put that down to saturation. With low tier items, they come in great multiples, so you have to compete with thousands, rather than a handful of traders with the same Unusual as you.

In my experience, donating is a HUGE boost to your trading. You aren't always there to autobump your trades and this helps alot. I get several offers every night because of it.

Originally posted by Champelliot:

Originally posted by Jonyface:

I think it really only benefits unusual traders or really valuable items because there arent many of one unusual on the market and if a person wanted it he/she would only have a few to chose from. Same goes with the valuable items.

I find my normal trades have very little publicity

I'd mainly put that down to saturation. With low tier items, they come in great multiples, so you have to compete with thousands, rather than a handful of traders with the same Unusual as you.

Agreed completely. I've noticed little change in my trades for normal items, however, I do blame that purely on the fact that tons of people autobump and that's an extremely large market. I've seen a slight increase, however.

Really, it's great for when you have to work/sleep/go to school. It's even better when you're gaming and don't want to tab out to bump trades.