Originally posted by Zemnmez:

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

But that is exactly my issue. Manually bumped trades are much more likely to be from active users than automatically bumped ones.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

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

Anyway, and I mean this amicably, don't bother. I'm just one cranky dude being (probably more than duly) irritated by a minor inconvenience that no one else seems to mind much. It is no big deal, you have a perk to give away which you need, and people actually seem to like the feature. I consider myself heard and overruled.

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.

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.

I'm thoroughly positively surprised by the effort you spend in addressing this and that you're allowing and participating in this discussion when you could be easily ignoring it or shutting it down. Thanks and respect.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

I don't personally receive any part of donations, nor do any staff that I know of.

I did not mean to imply anyone is greedily lining their pockets with donation cash. I apologize if that's how I came across. I realize donations help keep the site running and I wouldn't begrudge you a single cent you personally got out of it either. My problem is strictly with the (in my opinion) harmful donation benefit.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

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:

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

* Doesn't have the potential for offline/inactive users to be listed.

This isn't a problem. If no autobumping was possible, trades of offline users would naturally get sorted to the end of the list, where they belong.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

* 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.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

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.

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.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

* Has perks for people who support the website.

I don't think perks for donators should be hard to find. Give them more trades, give them a background color, cycle a showcase in the sidebar, etc.

Originally posted by Zemnmez:

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? [...] 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.

Far less people would be using scripts than are using the autobump feature now. You could make automated bumping solutions a bannable offense, which would serve as a further deterrent. The problem would be mitigated.

Honestly I would prefer if there was no bumping at all which like you said would obviously shift the problem to closing/recreating trades.

As some kind of middle way, I'd probably try restricting bumps to daily, making it very clear that gaming the system will get you banned.

I may be a little starry-eyed there and I can't and won't claim to have an ideal solution to all requirements. It is just my personal observation that my TF2OP experience has degraded significantly since autobumping was introduced. Just reverting the change would be an improvement over how things are.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

1. Everyone will bump frequently if they can. Being a donor just makes it easier. I don't give a shit about the front page, I want my trade on top when someone searches for what I am selling. I have never once used the front page for finding trades and doubt many people do since if you want something you would just search for it. I do not understand everyone weird and twisted obsession with getting or having trades on the frontpage.

2. It address the problem of having trades bumped without stock, and that problem has nothing to do with auto bumping so why are you grouping with auto bumping?

3. This addresses your problem with finding people who are online; your assumption that all auto bumped trades are by people not online is absurd and that icon will tell you who is and who is not.

1. Replace "front page" in everything I said with "first page" or "top". I don't care about the actual frontpage either.

2. Reporting it is a futile endeavor. I did report a few trades where the owners don't have the items and nothing ever happened. Even if, it would again try to correct a problem that wouldn't even exist in a meaninful way if it weren't for autobumps. Just have a look at all the autobumped key or bill's trades that name "STOCK: 0". That just sucks. It's spam.

3. You're going full circle with this one.

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.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

Originally posted by skirts:

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

I do not have to log onto the site to bump my trades. They will bump automatically while I am watching TV or Playing TF2 (where I am also at my computer and able to trade).

You're confirming my assumption here. Why do you need to bump it so often? The motivation for bumping is to get to the frontpage, supposedly because your trade is more important than others. Autobumping in that sense is a paid spot on the front page every half an hour.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

Originally posted by skirts:

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.

If they do not have the items to trade then report their trades and the staff will close them.

That doesn't address the fundamental problem with autobumping.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

Originally posted by skirts:

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

Easy solution: Check the online status icon.

That just doesn't address anything I said there.

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.

Auto-bumped trades are spam. Even ignoring the huge amounts of useless offline trades you can't filter out, online status itself isn't much help either. People idle for items or leave the PC on overnight. With manual bumps you can tell people were at the PC very recently and are still interested in the trade. When I add people from autobumps, it often takes ages for them to respond, sometimes they never do or tell me the items are out of stock or whatever.

Autobumping just sucks. That the site owners offer features that are opposed to the site's primary function just to encourage donations is frustrating.