WowAce

The idea of reserving a player was borne out of a desire to reward players who were present and ready to raid at raid time, but not included because the group was otherwise full. The may have been listed as "Standby" or "Backup" on a raid signup, and were ready to go during the raid times, despite not getting to participate in the raid.

Function

By setting a player "Reserved", that players moves through the list when someone else suicides, even though they are not in the active raid. This does not mean that they can bid on items. WoW's game mechanics do not allow for a player not present during a boss kill to loot a boss, or receive boss loot, no matter how hard you try.

Instead, this serves merely to keep them moving up in the loot position list, improving their bidding power for when they do next get the opportunity to bid on an item in a raid they do attend.

Limitations

Player Reserve settings are not transmitted between players. If the SKG Admin who will be processing loot events changes mid-raid, the new SKG Admin will also need to manually reserve players his or herself to ensure those players will move through the lists properly. Further, if you are running two(or more) simultaneous raids, only one of the raids should keep an individual player on reserve.

Finally, a player's online status is not checked when loot events occur. It is again up to the SKG Admin to un-reserve the player should they logout and no longer be "on standby".