No worries mate your doing a fantastic job.

OK folks, as you probably know, I've been working to implement an "Automatic Warning" feature. A member asked for it, and I thought it was a good idea.

Basically, what it does, is it issues a warning, when a user enters censored words in a post. I assume you are aware with the censorship option of vBulletin. Now, it's pretty much ready, and it traps censored words in new threads, new posts (answers to posts), when you edit a post you made, when you send a Private message.

What I want to ask you, is if you can think of any other area, where such an automatic warning will be necessary.

Your ideas would be appreciated.

If I do not hear from you until tomorrow morning (that's in about 8 hours from now), I'll upload Version 2.0 of AWS, as I have it now.

One more thing. Today, even though several of you have posted messages with questions, I haven't received a single notification from vbulletin.org. Did the same thing happened with you too?

Rgds
-----------

John

John,

Yes. After adding that column, I am still getting this error when adding a warning to a user:

Here's what I have in my "warnings" table:

What am I missing?

No worries on the issues, mate! You're doing a great job! :) Thanks for all the hard work and for responding to other users' requests for features.

Fixed the quotes as you suggested, but am now getting the following when I run upgrade_warn.php:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected ']', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /path/to/my/forum/admincp/upgrade_warn.php on line 187

OK, that explains it, you are missing the removed_date column, at the end of the table.

ALTER TABLE `warnings` ADD `removed_date` int(15)

That's all

Time to go to bed.

--------
John

Thanks, John. That fixed it. :)

John,

Seem I've found another issue:

I added a warning for a user as admin, and then removed that warning.

Whenever I try to add a warning for another post, I get the following message:

I am getting this on posts that I have not warned this user for before.

I have done some additional testing, and it seems that this only occurs after I have added a non-post related warning. Once the user has a non-post related warning, if I try to add a post-related warning, I get the above error message. :)

edited again to add:

Even if the non-post related warnings are deleted/inactivated, I still get the above error message. I can only add new post-related warnings after I prune all non-post related warnings for a user. :)

Okay, cool. Thanks for replying.

I can see the usefulness of a maturity level, because my members seem to like posting short annoying messages that sometimes aint even on topic :p
Warning them for each and every post would get them kicked offa the board within a day ;)


About the AutoWarn, how about including autowarn for posting in threads older than [admin set time]? And this only has effect in [admin set forums]?
I know I could install hacks that auto closes threads, but I am having a problem with my users posting in ancient Newbie threads. I dont want ALL old threads to be closed, as sometimes its not bad to revive them, but being welcomed by a dude who just joined after the welcomed member has 200 posts, thats just dumb ;)


//peace

Show me that area of the file, there is no ']' in that line. Show me a few lines before and a few after. Maybe you erased something more than just the quotes.

Rgds

Oooops,

This thing is getting too complicated. It's impossible to test every combination!!

OK, easy one. Please find the following line in Warn.php:

Change it to:


Sorry!!!

Folks,

A few words about Version 2.0, to open your appetite.

As it is running on my forums now, it is catching words, which are in the censored words list of vBulletin, and it issues automatic warnings to the poster. The censored words are trapped in the following instances:

1. When you create a new thread.
2. When you reply to a post in a thread.
3. When you edit a post you have submitted before.
4. When you send a Private Message.

This is done for both the titles and the text of the posts.

All this is fine and nice, but there are some issues. For example, let's suppose you implement that system and a member posts some nusty words in one of his posts. The warning is issued, however, the original text, before being censored is nowhere to be found, vBulletin does not store it. It just replaces the letters in the bad words with a predefined character, so you end up with a post like "You are an *******". So? If the poster protests, how do you prove him he has actually typed a censored word?

The things get worst in Private Messages. The PMs are stored in the database, and the admin can read them, but again, they are stored with *****. Now, if it's not easy to tell a member that he was warned because he posted a public post, with obsceneties, how will you convince him that his PM (which goes from one member to the other) was obscene?

So, I am thinking if this feature should be released at all. I can always add one option for post-related automatic warnings, and another for PM-related ones, so the admin can select which one he would implement. Would that be satisfactory?

Also shall I add this automatic warning thing, in e-mails (the Contact Us form)?

Your opinion will be greatly appreciated, so please do not hesitate to comment.

As for the suggestion to warn users who post in old threads, I think this is a ... whole project by itself. My original idea, was that an admin would be able to select from a list of automatic warnings, which one he want to use. However, the changes required in the code, make such an effort totally impossible. Imagine that different code is required to trap the censored words in the edit post, than in the new post and totally different in the PM. So, I guess this is not something you will see in the immediate future.

However, keep those ideas coming, something good (and relatively easy) could come up.

And now the funny thing, yesterday evening my system warned several members of my forum, with no reason. Why? Because in the code, the routine which traps the censored words, is sometimes combined with other routines. In my infinite wisdom, when I was comparing the original message with the final one, I didn't do that at the censor routine only, so almost all the PMs that were send last night, got a warning. Say frustrated users again??? LoL

I am listening folks, keep those ideas coming.

----------

John

Doh, never mind...found the problem. the " should be not removed, but moved to the end of the line just before the ; (second install[] line)...

Now it runs just fine.

Was:
Second line should be:

Glad you have it working.

Rgds

:) That fixed it. Thanks!

It's not impossible to test all combinations, it's just tedious. Thanks again for your work on this!

Lo M8

First of all thanks for the response, A lesser man would of told me to shut up lol

Anyhow

I dont think PM should be included in the warning system as TBH what people do between themselves is non of my concern as if it does get out of hand I am sure the person on the recieving end would make a complaint.

As for the open forums, that is the bit I would want to concentrate on as in the past people have found it fun to post links to sites that do nothing more than add hundreds of pops up boxes etc, and no matter how many times you tell them to use a pop up blocker none of them actualy listen lol

I also want to use it to filter out links to sites containing Warez or serials and keygens etc so that they can not post links to them and if they do so they will receive a warning. I am sure my site is not the first or the last to be plagued by this problem and in the past I have seen several hosting companys take sites down as the staff have failed to spot links to warez etc.

Like you said when it comes to PM's it is very dodgy ground as the very description of the system contains the word PRIVATE and thats how I think they should remain.

Thanks for all the hard work you have put in on this and I am only to greatfull of anything that helps to make this hack better than it already is.

Small Ideas make Big Hacks.

Hello, I receive this error when I click confirm of warning a user, it does
warn and email out the user I just seem to get this for some reason the Warn.php file is in place and all the others any ideas what it is... It is a
brand new board...

Since the error is caused by a duplicated section that's been commented out, I'd just delete this:

// (1260, 7, 0, 0, '', 1, 1101849704, 1102454504)

How do I delete that .... :squareeyed:

Find that query in the Warn.php file and replace the whole thing with :

If you do not know how to delete the commented part, just download the new zip file and upload the Warn.php file.

Guys, I still do not receive e-mail from this thread. What's wrong here?

Rgds

Thanks for the above it worked code change :)

Can smeone tell me how I add this to satellite template which I brought because in
the templates theme I can't find any of the text where I need to add this new text after....

There was a post with some instructions on how to do this, in other skins, sorry I have no idea.

When I try to warn a user, I get a blank page.

I checked and realized that none of the templates were created when I ran the upgrade_warn.php (which ran without any errors that I saw)...

Is there an easy way to create these so I can get my warning system up and running?

Thanks.

The only reason I can think of, why the templates are not created, is that you are using a table prefix and you haven't changed the file to use that, or that you haven't uploaded the directory install_warn with the file warn.xml which is in that directory. One more thing. The templates are added to that default style, if you are using more than one, check the thread, there is a post on how to add the templates to the rest of the styles you use.

Rgds

install_warn directory is there with the .xml file in place.

No table prefixes. Only one styleset, however, it is ID # 2.

How difficult would it be for me to go through mySQL and insert directly the templates?

Do me a favor and run this query:

select * from template

what is the styleid you see in your templates? In my table, it is -1. What's yours?

Rgds

I see a few that are 2 and then several (the unmodded ones, I think) that are -1.

UPDATE: Yep, looks like everything I've changed in the style shows up with style id 2, anything that I left at vB default is style id -1.

Hi there.

In what file do we do the Step #10 in the new-install instructions?

Thanks;

Jamie

Sorry, it's in editpost.php

I am not sure how you can modify the upgrade_warn.php to make it work for your case. I assume that you could change the styleid, but I do not know to what you should change it to.
I can't figure out why yours are styleid 2 while mine are 1.

OR you can open up warn.xml and copy the templates from there. Sorry my friend, I can't help with that.

Rgds

Okay, no problem...

Help me with this one thing and I should be up and running.

Here is a snippet of the first template in warn.xml:

I understand the variables you have at the beginning (defining the template name, etc.) but where do I start copying the contents of the template - I assume the "![CDATA[" portion is not part of the template itself...

Thanks.

You are right, whatever is after CDDATA[ is the real template.

Sorry you have to go through this mess, but I do not know how the templates thing works, if you have it different than ... stock.

Rgds

Has anyone tested the "Restore Usergroup" function? I mean those of you who wanted to moderate the banned users, after they get unbanned, did you test this feature? Is it working OK?

Rgds
----------
John

Great hack... Everything appears to be OK.

Only issue i ran into was the templates not getting installed. I went through and did them manually. Now everything seems to be OK at first look except one thing. If there are any problems I'll be sure to come back in and seek some help.

Whenever I'm in the warning templates I have a [ and the top of the page and a /> at the bottom. Likely I just have to go through the templates and find where the stray characters are at.

You are right, you probably have copied something wrong when doing the templates, especially the warn_addwarn. Check it out and I am sure (well almost sure) that you 'll find where these characters are coming from. In any case, I'll double check the instructions on the templates to make sure I haven't screwed something up.

Rgds

Ive just upgraded my site with this and it works pretty much as it says on the tin, I had a small problem when the auto warn was issuing points out willy nilly but that was my fault for being dumb.

Its been working now for a few hours and I have not had one complain except for ofcourse those who the sytem has caught already.

Thanks a hell of a lot for this, I rate this and the CMPS the best hacks on here at the moment.

Hmm. Where can I add more protected user groups?

What exactly do you have in mind? The protected groups are set in the code, depending on the Hierarchical option. If set, only admins are protected, if not set then admins, supermods and mods are protected. You want to add other groups to these?

Rgds

I am glad you like it Shack Networks, after all, you were the originator of the automatic warnings idea.

Rgds

Yes sv1 - I thought you included it in your past ZT's additons.

Your work currently is fantastic :)

What happens when someone gets given a warning for X points, and the X points happens to also be the limit, and the user is temp banned, and the warning maturity is set to longer than what the user gets temp-banned for?