Correct, Atleast from my interpretation of the guide example and the rules using the phrase “back-to-back”. Hopefully staff reach out to you to clarify since even in this thread there’s different interpretations!

how is hedonism posting "back-to-back" in that thread?

Sorry, I meant to say that Hedonisms example shows that you can post in your thread before the 4 hour mark, as long as you are replying to someone that posted in between you in a matter that’s moving the trade along. If any post before the 4 hour mark was considered “back-to-back”, then Hedonisms example would be breaking the rules.

I always found it funny how some people don't get it.
As if you were only bumping a post when you post "bump".

Every single post made by anyone is always a bump, in case someone didn't know by now.
and *obviously* posting early after your own post ("back to back") violates the bump rule.

In any case, I wouldn't mind if it was made more clear. It wouldn't hurt either?

This rule always made sense until d2r came out and they recruited a bunch of new mods at once. One of them started incessantly closing every topic where people replied to people in their thread within 4 hours, even if it wasn't back to back. These types of posts were never closed since the beginning of jsp until d2r came out. In typical North Korea fashion, instead of telling whoever that mod was to chill, they doubled down on it and now you can't even reply to people in your own thread anymore. Hedonism's example trade post is how things always worked until d2r came out and they decided to be extra jewy about things because that's the way things are around here now.

You have a timer in your trade topic "next bump in: xxx"
Every post will reset it to 4 hours so if you post to your own topic and the timer isn't at 0, it is an early bump. It doesn't matter if you post something like "bin added", quote a user or whatever.
It is very simple and the same rule for everyone.
You are able to edit the first post and/or can pm a user who posted to the topic.