Originally posted by Uranium235:

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

You're marked on steamrep, go here http://forums.steamrep.com/forums/appeal/

Huh, last time I checked, he was not. http://steamrep.com/profiles/76561198035337336

Nope, you're right, I didn't check, he's now unbanned.

You're marked on steamrep, go here http://forums.steamrep.com/forums/appeal/

To http://imgur.com/

Upload it to http://imgur.com/ and link it here.

Can I have a screenshot of what tf2outpost.com looks like to you?

Originally posted by skirts:

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

It's there to keep the trade visible.

Originally posted by skirts:

All trades are "visible" until closed. The point of bumping isn't visibility but visibility before others. As such it is purely competitive and creates an arms race where everyone tries to outbump the others.

No, the point is that trades close to the top are from active users.

I apologise I've not answered your long reply, I haven't had time yet.

Originally posted by skirts:

I find this interesting and I can't add anything to what I've already said in reply. I don't understand why your trade needs to be bumped to the front except to get an advantage that everyone else will then also need to try to get. As was said earlier:

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

traders don't really give a damn if your trade is at the top, they want the best deal and they're willing to read more than one page to get it.

It's there to keep the trade visible.

heh

I like Norby's idea.

Originally posted by skirts:

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

There are a couple of problems here.

You've named one exception to the general spammy nature of autobumping: trades collecting offers that would be autoclosed if they weren't bumped. If I'm not mistaken, autoclosing happens when there hasn't been any activity on a trade in two weeks? If autobumping is to protect those no-activity trades from being closed, why don't you autobump daily or weekly? Or offer an autoclosing exception to donators?

Can you name another way in which autobumping makes trading easier rather than more difficult? Not trying to be antagonistic here, but let's face it, most people use autobumping to get the front page repeatedly regardless of if they can actually trade the items anytime soon or even have them anymore, you know it and you tolerate/encourage it because it gets you donations.

Filtering by online status would be neat, but it's a workaround to a problem you introduced in earnest with autobumping.

Can you name another way in which autobumping makes trading easier rather than more difficult?

Autobumping allows trades to be seen without the user physically bumping the post with the bump button, which causes a greater selection of posts to be visible on the front page. The point of autobumping is that a selection of trades is shown on the front page. Remember that a user only need bump their trade every hour to meet the standards of the highest donation rank.

Not trying to be antagonistic here, but let's face it, most people use autobumping to get the front page repeatedly regardless of if they can actually trade the items anytime soon or even have them anymore, you know it and you tolerate/encourage it because it gets you donations.

I don't personally receive any part of donations, nor do any staff that I know of. Speaking of TF2OP as a whole, yes, higher auto-bumping rates are a perk of a higher donation level, but I think that's justified by the donation, and I will say again- a user need only manually bump the trade the minimum of every hour to meet or execeed the highest donation tier's perks. As to whether users use "regardless of if they can actually trade the items anytime soon or even have them anymore" I can't say for the actions of users but staff will respond to reports of that kind and close such trades since it breaks the rules.

Filtering by online status would be neat, but it's a workaround to a problem you introduced in earnest with autobumping.

You are correct that there are features of the bumping system that users could find annoying. However, I doubt you can propose an alternative system that:

• Doesn't have the potential for offline/inactive users to be listed.
  
• Provides a way to sort posts both on the frontpage and on searches that doesn't require the user to remake trades over and over to make them visible.
  
• Has perks for people who support the website.

Point #1 is your complaint and I just don't know of any sort of system that would improve it. Removing autobump makes it even more chaotic than it already is and just leaves the website subject to autobump scripts. If you have a better idea than filtering offline users, I'd love to hear it.

Originally posted by skirts:

Anyway, I wanted this said, it's said. I can't spend my day on arguing finer points. The fundamental nature of autobumps is spammy. Do with this what you want, probably nothing at all. Tf2op ops obviously do not need to care and obviously no one will quit using tf2op since it's just too damn useful as it is for the insane amounts of exposure it gives you.

TF2OP doesn't have some sort of ancient unbreakable tradition of autobumping, it's just the best solution to the problems already mentioned, unless you're willing to propose something better? I'll mention again as an ending point, would you say that clicking the 'bump' button once every hour is too much work to compete on par with those with donator ranks? In addition, traders don't really give a damn if your trade is at the top, they want the best deal and they're willing to read more than one page to get it.