Feature Suggestions
 

Please use this thread, if you want to suggest a new feature or something that would improve AWS.

Please do not use this thread to request code modifications, for your particular needs, this is to be used, for general feature suggestions, things that would apply to anyone's forum site.

Tnx and rgds

---------------

John

When a warning is issued, would it be possible to send a post to a designated forum or a reply to a post ID?

I know this sounds like duplication of effort since the mod panel holds this data, but it gives a much easier alert to moderating activity for the team.

Let me understand that, a moderator warns a user for one of his posts. The warned person receives a PM saying that he was warned. The post that received the warning, gets a big red sign on it, so every admin/supermod/moderator knows that this post has received a warning. What more do you want? You want a post in a special forum, which says what? Please be more specific.

Rgds

John,

It was a suggestion not a criticism sir :) Suggestion = more.

We presently make a post to say that we have done such and such so peple are aware without having to view each and every post...What I was suggesting is that if you have a forum for moderators (I assume most sites do) that you can specify this forum or a sub forum to essentially alert the team to activity. I'm just suggesting it as a belt and braces feature.

As to what detail, just a simple post with User <name> received warning for <type>. Just a simple heads up aloerting for moderators not glued to there console or every post...

Sorry.

What you have is brilliant as it stands.

An option to exclude a certain or multiple forums from the obscenity check has also been suggested to me aswell, eg a lounge / free disscussion area.

No problem, I didn't take it as criticism, I was just trying to understand what you are saying. I think that I could implement such a thing, but wouldn't it be simpler if mods could see the whole moderator log? At the moment, each of the mods can see the warnings each one has issued. What if they could see the whole list? In that case, there would be no reason for a special forum, unless of course this is something you do already. For example, my instructions to my mods, is when they delete a post, to not actually delete it, but move it to a specific forum. Let me know what you want, so we can find the best way to do it.

Rgds

request, not even a suggestion: $vbphrase ... most of the texts included in this hack are hardcoded...

i don't see why you have some phrases added in the install process when most of the phrases are forgotten in the entire hack...

oh, and the " ∑ " in the templates are not html compliant... use the correct tags please... ;)

for the rest, this is a great hack... i'll wait for an update to install it...!!

I understand your criticism about the phrases. I'll try to remove all text, but I can't promise when.

What I do not understand, is the " Σ ", in the templates. Can you please give me an example?

Tnx

here... i don'T know what is the result tag, but it is written in old Windows style, not html tag...

John,

Cool :)

It's mainly so that a thread or post in the moderators area shows up when they do new post or daily posts...I agree the postbit is fine and enough.

It's really another layer of communication that alerts other mods that somthing has happened. It's only somthing quick and clean, the ultimate reference is the log.

Perhaps better then if just a reply to a post?

I use the same process of soft deleting or moving threads to an inspection room, this serves as above in a funny sort of way. If a mod feels the need they make apost stating what was done and why in the moderating forum.

We don't really see alot of moderation on our site; just shy of 5k users in total, so when moderating is done it can go un-noticed by other moderators who don't check the logs as part of there routine, unless flagged as above.

So in summary it's somthing that essentially adds a log/alert system but in the forums normal environment/view so as to prinicpally alert mods to activity that may or may not need assistance. Perhaps extend that with a minimum trigger level so only events where points 2+ counted and generated a user x has been warned for <offence> post. ..

Briskoda,

This is another whole level you are asking here. Not that it can't be done, but it's quite complicated, maybe later, at the moment, Nexialys put me to work.

Rgds

Nexialys,

I still do not understand what you mean by "it is written in old Windows style, not html tag". Could you please show me how the above example should be coded, with html tags?

Rgds

[high]* nexialys look at sv1sec, take his whisk, and hope there is no witnesses...
[/high]

the tag, you use the character, instead of the html tag... use this: ? ( & # 149 ; ) without the spaces!... ;)

the character you use is in Windows format, so when the page is displayed in another format than charset=ISO-8859-1", it may appear in a strange way, even show the character you use instead of the dot!

Now I understood what you meant!

I was trying to find out where my mistake is in the HTML code. You are talking about the dot, between the links!!! Well, if I remember correctly (and this is not an excuse), I got that from vBulletin itself. Somewhere in this software, there was this character and I copied the code. Or maybe not, I am not sure.

Promise, that will be removed in the next release. LoL

Rgds

hum, yeah, i know that some special characters are always hardcoded in vB... remember that parts of that code are from the old hardcoded version, and was forgotten in the realm of php3.. ;)

Perhaps it is possible to make a new warning rule when you warn a user.
It is me already happen that I warn a user, but I had no good rule for its warning :D

What you mean by "rule"? Do you mean a warning type? These, you create them yourself, from the admincp.

If you mean to allow the creation of a warning type, while you are warning a user, no, this cannot be done. You do not want the moderators to add rules at will, this is something the admin should do.

Rgds

As I said, it will be corrected in the next release, not something that difficult. The only problem is that the twins are at home for the weekend, so I sincerely doubt I'll have time for doing any coding work.

Rgds and thanks for the hints.

Oke :speechless: I say nothing :cheeky:

Hey, Family First... nothing more... even if i'd be your boss, i would ask you to take care of your family before taking time for coding free stuff...

good luck twice then !!!

Nexialys,

Could I ask you a couple of questions:

1. I tried replacing some text in a file which is in admincp with a phrase I created and it does not show up. How does a php program understand which phrases it's going to use and loads them? Is there something I can read about this issue?

2. Regarding those dots, where can I find some details about what I need to replace that dot with, in order to show properly?

Tnx and rgds

1. :

In the top of every file you will find a line like the following:
This will load the phrasegroups used in this script (on top of some default groups).

Hello,

Nice to see you're working on it sv1cec. I'm still using Zero Tolerance 1.5 hack (with some minor modifications), but will give this a look soon.

We were using Ikonboard before and we've made some midifications to that one too. Here are some suggestions for options:

-Increase posting flood with warningpoints. 1 warningpoint gives 1^0 30 seconds extra, 2 gives 2^2 *30 etc. My experience is that this is quite effective (a warned user is often in a balistic mood, that's fine and understandable, but there are limits to this. Things quickly aggrevate more than good for anyone).
-Increase searchflood.
-Increase PM flood.
-Remove post edit function (effective for backpeddling trolls stirring the pot).
-Remove poll creation.
-Prevent editing signature.
-Block editing usertitle.

You could say: take away a kids toy (so he can't throw it into someones face) until he has calmed down.

Thanks for that, it now makes sense. But are you able to create a new phrasegroup in order to add your own phrases, or do you have to select one of the existing one?

Sorry I am asking instead of looking around, but with the twins in the house, it is impossible for me to spend time inverstigating this.

Tnx and rgds

These are interesting suggestions, but I am not sure if these parameters are controllable at the user level. For example, the post flood check, search flood check etc, I think (and this is open to comments) that they are global. Do you know how they can be controlled at the user level? Of course, it could be done by the program, in the sense :

if userwarningpoints>3 then floodcheck=floodcheck*1.5

etc., but I am not quite sure if this is doable. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Rgds

Well folks, I spend the entire afternoon tonight, getting familiar with the vbphrase thing and creating some phrases. The whole effort required to remove all text fields from the hack scripts is enormous. I sincerely doubt I'll ever complete it. Not only I have to create all the phrases, but I also have to come up with an installer which means I have to copy each and every phrase I make into the Phrase Manager and into the installer script.

Until now, I have created 3 pages of phrases, and I haven't even touched the admin_warn.php file, where most of the text is found. I am really not sure I am going to complete this task. I prefer to devote my energy towards more functionality or towards another hack.

I fully understand the benefits of separate text fields, but this is way too much work for me, if someone is willing to help do it, I am open to offers.

Sorry Nexialys, I think you will not finally honnor me by clicking the install button.

Yes you can make your own phrasegroup.

See also the discussion about that, or have a look around at some installers (or HIS)

Also traffix recently made a thread on how to install manual.

PS For creating an installer with all phrases you can very good user HIS.

1. Just create on your develop board all your phrases yourself. Make sure you name them all "myhack_........"
2. Set "myhack_" as prefix in the HIS files
3. click on generate files
4. ....your install file with all your phrases is ready.

MarcoH64,

Thanks for the input. I sincerely appreciate it. I guess it's something I might look again in the future, for the time being, I do not have the peace of mind to do this thing. Too many changes, too much work, for the sole benefit of multi-lingual support.

As for HIS, I downloaded and spend some hours checking the various files. Unfortunatelly, there is very little documentation on the usage of this tool, so I again fall in the same pothhole, no time to figure it out.

Again, many thanks.

Rgds

Well using HIS is pretty simple, i could run you through it one day on MSN/ICQ

Hello. First I want to thank you for the amount of time you have spent both developing this hack and supporting the users of it.

We have been using it since ZeroTolerance first created it and the amount of work you have put into it is incredible.

What I would like to see it the instructions for the hack broken down into sets of mini-instructions by topic. For example, we do not use the automatic warning, yet we still must hack the files to allow this because we are not sure if perhaps some parts would not work without it. This is by far the largest hack we have ever installed and if the instructions could be listed by the topics (for example, have the automatic warning hack instructions listed seperately) it would trim down the hacking we must perform as well as reduce the amount of errors a user may make while hacking.

Anyway, just a thought. Thanks again for this wonderful hack.

Got a point there. Actually, the automated warnings are affected by the changes suggested in editpost.php, newthread.php, newreply.php and private.php. It's not very clearly marked, but if you check the code, it mentions that this is for automated warnings. I'll see if I add some comments in future releases, but I first have to make 100% sure if you can omit these changes without breaking up somewhere else.

Rgds and tnx for the input.

I might only be able to provide a pointer. We had it with another board like:
floodcheck = (userwarnlevel * warningpenalty) + floodcheck. Admin could set the value of the extra penalty, the flood grew together with the warnings.

Floodcheck seems well hidden. I found Kalls max posts per day hack on this board (will post URL once I find it again), so it should be possible to make this too.

In /newthread.php
Below
is where a check is added using $bbuserinfo. The end result is

Kalls hack generates an error when a user tries to make more topics/posts /time than he's allowed to do. Pretty nifty as it essentially (also) adds another floodcheck on top to bypass the global limitation (which I can't find anyway :nervous: ).

You have $bbuserinfo there, so you know a users warnlevel. Iirc, the last time a user posted is stored in his profile as well (no need to do extra timeconsuming queries)

So,
(1 + $bbuserinfo[warnlevel]) * floodcheck) doesn't require adding the penalty value field in the settings table of the database.

Should do the trick. A similar is required for newreplies (have to find Kalls hack to see where this has to be done in newreply.php). Note, I'm not a coder.

The edit button can be disabled from the postbit (legacy) template by replacing:
by

An edit in editpost.php is probably required too?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=69308 Kalls hack. Great tool and should be of help here to make personal floodvalues.

I'll have a look at the code and see what I can come up with. The elimination of certain user priviledges sounds like an interesting idea. I guess that since flood check cannot be controlled on a user level, a few new columns in the user table and some rules in the admin_warn.php could implement it.

Let me .... sleep on these.

Rgds and thanks

Here the suggestion :)

Ok guy, you reached max point, but you will not banned from my forum:
I filled a list of forumid where you will be banned (with access masks) and so you lost access from those forum (during your AWS ban period).

I like this idea. Let me work on it. Depending on the twins schedule (if they are taken to their grandmother this weekend), I might come up with something.

One question, when you are talking about access, are you refering to reading as well as posting, or posting only? And please elaborate when you refer to "access masks".

Update

I spend some time researching this issue, and it appears that it is quite a task. The reason being that the whole program was desinged from the beginning with banning in mind. An option can be set which will select one of several penalizing options (ban/restrict etc), but then there are a lot of things that need to be changed. Some questions are:

Do we still maintain the idea of Permanent Ban warnings? I mean, I would want to be able to ban a user if he does some offence, which I consider serious enough. Then, in a board with restrictions, there should be two mechanisms, one handling the restrictions, one handling the banning of users. That means separate routines for the restrictions and separate ones for the banning. Unless, the banning is not handled at all by AWS, and is done via the standard vB mechanism and we let AWS do the restrictions part only. Changing AWS to handle both, would be stupid.

In this case (if AWS does the restrictions, and the banning is handled by vB mechanism), then the whole AWS should be re-written to handle this. For example, the logic behind totally removing a ban should be changed, since it is also affecting the bans a user has received.

I am not saying it can't be done, what I am saying is that this is a major rewrite and with the way my life is at this moment, I do not have the time for such a rewrite. And even if my schedule changes (I hope it does, because I need to get a job soon), it wouldn't be for the better, it would be for worst, because then, I will not have the mornings available to work on this hack. And during the weekends, I'll want to see my kids etc. So, a major rewrite can't fit in my schedule at this moment.

There is another problem as well. My live board cannot be used for testing the new system. I do not have access to another test system, except the Sun I have here at home, which however is not up to the task of handling vB. It is very slow, probably due to limited memory, so it's very difficult for me to do the testing on this system (not impossible, difficult and time consuming).

All this is rather frustrating, because I like the idea of restrictions. It can make this hack, so much more flexible.

I'll post here any new developments on this front.

Imagine that you create some groups called first time kicked,second time kicked,recidive and stupid, now you die.
With a quick wizard you can set which forum are linked to that groups.
In back end the wizard automatically set forum permissions (no access, no post, no nothing... = "ban from a forum") for that groups about the forumid setted during wizard setup.

Ok, now the user "Caius" get an AWS ban for the first time:
AWS system set his group as first time kicked (just for the time of the AWS ban) and then Caius can't access|write|read to the list of forum linked to that group.

Ok, after a month Caius is AWS-banned for the second time. Then AWS set his group as second time kicked..

etc.. etc..

The concept is to deny access to a list of important forum from recidive banned people..

I would like to suggest you take advantage of the Updated Template system in vB.
Since your installer already imports templates into the Master Style, it is simply a matter of discovering the time() when you alter a template in your .xml file, then update the date area of the <template>.
This way, it automatically replaces unmodified templates, and gives us an option to revert the custom ones :)

I like the idea of tying points into board functionality. I'm very happy with this hack and it's made things a lot easier, but it's also created a new group of users who try to work the system. They cause enough trouble to get just under the points limit where they'd get banned, and wait for points to expire before causing more trouble. Of course we can resort to the old 'we reserve the right to ban any user at any time' routine for those kinds of offenders and they're indignant about being persecuted. It would be nice if the points brought a little pain.

At the moment, there are three such additional pains, signature cut-off, avatar cut-off and PM cut-off. TonaInu has just send me the code to add a forth, a flood checking system, which does not allow a user to post a new thread or a new post, soon after his previous one.

One more thing, when you are reverting to the old, manual banning way, do not do it via vB, do it via the AWS, in that way, the system still has control over what's going on.

If you have any ideas on what more you would like to see implemented on the "take away their toys" side, please let me know.

Is it possible to get the URL clickable in the thread it creates in the forum I have assigned to post my mods' warnings?? If other mods want to see where the thread was that was warned, they have to click and drag the URL, and copy/paste it..

That's not a biggie, just would be nice if it could post a clickable link in the thread it creates in the "warning" forum.

They are clickable in the PM and email, just not the thread it creates..

You are doing great with this!! This is probably my favorite hack out there!

The thread it creates in the specified forum, is the same text it is in the PM it sends, and as I told you, the link IS clickable. In the thread it creates, there is a phrase which says "This Post" or something similar. If you click on that one, it will show you the thread that was warned, I think it shows it in a new window. Maybe this is your problem??

The link is clickable, I verified that this morning.

Many forums have a problem with people breaking signature rules. So to be able to give them warning points that always meet the thresold for the signature-cutoff can be a good idea to temporarly disable the user's signature.

However, sometimes administrators dont want to disable their signature when giving other warning types and points.

How about;

1) Have the signature-disabled threshold level as it is now
2) Also include the option when adding a warning type to "Kill Signature" or "Kill Avatar" ("with this warning") - and when this specific warning matures, they can use the signature again

:)

The change you are asking means adding another column in the warning types table and then checking if the user has received that particular warning. However, this is a no ending issue, since we need another option for the avatar, another for the PM system, another for .... I do not know, if it is worth it.

You can do the same thing today, if you play a bit with your warning points and the signature threshold.

Or maybe it is worth doing it. If I get enough requests, I'll consider it.

I don't know if this is already a feature, has been suggested, or not but banning by IP address would be helpful. Some people try to get around a temp- or perma- ban by creating a new account. If they are banned by IP address that would solve that problem.

I realize that may cause a problem for some users with dynamic ip addresses but that is something I would rather worry about on an administrative level. Perhaps a way for a user the suspects an error has occurred to send an email to administration asking them to look into the situation. If it's something that needs to be undone, then so be it.

OK, I have a question for you: How do you see this being implemented? There are several ways to do it. For example:

Do you want every permanent ban that occurs, due to the accumulation of warning points, to result in an IP ban as well?

Or when a user is temporarily being banned, to also ban his IP address? And then when he is unbanned, to unban his IP as well?

Rgds