[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

Two ways, one is to use the Remove link in the View XYZ's Warnings, and the other is to use the Complete Removal from the View Warning Logs in AdminCP.

The second method removes not only the related warning and its points, but also any bans associated with it (it does not unban the member if he is banned, you will have to do that manually, but reduces his bans number by one).

Rgds

Just to wet your appetite, here is a list of the things you can expect in Version 3.0:

In a few words, I've managed to move a big chunk of code, from the various files which issue warnings (Warn.php, editpost.php, newreply.php, newthread.php, private.php), to the functions_warning.php file. This makes the hack much easier to install, in the first place. It also makes the automatic warning feature, much easier to implement, in other parts of vBulletin, thus allowing me to easily expand its functionality in the future. Finally additional features can be added more easily.

I also altered the way the banning worked. In other words, until version 2.3.5, when a member was banned, his total warning points remained into his account. If he received one more point, he was banned again, a second time. This (I think) was wrong, because:

a. Obviously, since the member is already banned, he can't commit more offences, which would lead to another warning. Obviously if a moderator ends up warning a post, posted by a banned user, this offence was commited before he was banned, but the warning for it, is coming after he was banned.

b. Let's take this example:

A member commits the following offences:

offence A : 5 points
offence B : 6 points
offence C : 3 points

The warning limit is 10 points. As the admin issues the first two warnings, the ban limit is reached and the member is banned. The member's total points are 11 at this moment. But the admin still has to add another warning, worth 3 points. The moment he does that, with the old system, the total points the member has, would go to 14, but he would also receive another ban (remember, that he was banned the moment the admin issued the second warning).

To avoid this problem, a member who is banned, can of course still be warned and his points increase accordingly, but he does not receive another ban, while his first is still in effect . In the example above, the last warning is issued and the user points reach 14, but his ban count remains at one. When he is unbanned, and if we suppose that none of his warnings have expired, he still has 14 points and if he receives one more then he will then receive his second ban.

Other functionality added:

It's just natural to add the option of e-mailing those users who get banned, to let them know that they got banned. A PM in this case, is useless, as they cannot log in the forums to read it, so an e-mail has to be used. Some admins however might not want to alert bad members with such an e-mail, so I added an option, with which you can define if you want e-mails send to the members who get banned or not. That required a new template to be added.

Some one suggested that a member might get a ban, but then learn his lesson and behave. Why should that ban be in his account for ever? Wouldn't it be logical to remove it, after a certain period passes? I think it would, or at least it sounds reasonable, so what I did, was to add an option, where you can define the duration that a ban will stay in a user's account. After that period, the ban will automatically be removed from the user's account. In other words, if that period is 6 months (which is entered as days in the program, i.e. 180 days), and he was banned on January 3rd, this ban will be shown in his account until July 3rd. If you check the User Manager page, in your AdminCP, before July 3rd, you will see that ban. If you check it after the above date, the user will appear as if he had never been banned. This required a new table to be added to the system.

Although this feature sounds reasonable, there might be others who will not consider it useful, so again, an option was added to control it. Finally, since maybe some admins want to have old bans expire, but want to see if their users were banned at some time, the above mentionned table can be checked to see if a member has ever been banned.

To see the contents of this table, you should use the "View Bans Per User" selection in the AWS Menu, in your Admincp. The table structure is self- explanatory, each record you see there, represents a warning which caused a ban. The Ban Rank is the order of bans that this user has received, in other words, if this is 1, this was his first ban, if this is 2, this was his second ban etc. . The Ban Status column has the following meanings:

"IUA" (In User's Account) : The ban is still active, so it is included in the Bans number shown in your User Management page.
"NAUA" (Not Affecting User's Account) : The ban has matured (in other words the user has been good for the time you specified and the cron job removed this ban from the user Bans number, shown in the User Management page.
"Permanent" : This warning caused a permanent ban, so this cannot be removed or rendered inactive.

If you do not use the Bans Maturity feature, you should not see any Inactive bans here, the records should either be Active or Permanent.

If you want to be able to see the expired bans, even though your user account bans have been reduced after he was good for quite some time, all you have to do, is to turn on the historical records option. If the Historical Records is set to Yes, the ban records will remain in that new table, but will be marked as Inactive.

The other columns of this table, show the details of the warning that caused the ban (like type of warning etc).

So, by checking this menu option, you can immediately see the bans history of your members.

Some clarification is in order here:

In the View Warning Logs menu option, there are two alternatives, one is to Remove a warning, and the other is to do a Complete Removal of a warning. The difference between these two actions, is not very clear, so here is the clarification.

The Remove action, is sort of a manual maturing of a warning. It removes the warning points from the user's account, it marks the warning as inactive, but does not reduce the number of warnings a user has received in his career in the forum, and it does not remove any bans that the warning might have caused, from the user's account.

The Complete Removal, is like undoing the warning. The warning points will be removed from the user's account, his warnings will be reduced by one, any associated ban that the warning has caused will be removed from the user's account (his bans will be reduced by one). The only thing that the Complete Removal will not do, is to unban the user and the reason for this, is because the program cannot be sure if the user is still banned, and if he is, if the user was banned because of the warning you are removing or because of another warning. As a result, if the user is banned, you will have to unban him manually.

If this is still not clear, do use the hack's thread for your questions.

Another feature that was added, was the sorting of the Log File. When you select to see the Warning Logs now, you will see a set of buttons, at the top row of the list, saying "Asce" and "Desc". You may click on those buttons to sort the list, according to that column, in ascending or descending order. I think this will help the admins, in better evaluate their members actions.

Finally, another feature that I added, was the ability to select if a moderator can enter a comment, when he is warning a member, or if the Warning Type Description will be send instead of a comment. If you want to make your moderators life easier, then set this option to Yes. Keep in mind that this option affects only, post-related warnings. The Non-Post-Related ones still allow the warner to add a comment.

Oh yes, I also added some statistics, warnings per warning type and warnings per moderator (well, per warner shall we say?).

The code is pretty stable at the moment, but since it involved several major changes I'll have a test environment set up tomorrow, where I'll be able to test the installation scripts and the functionality before releasing it. I guess you will have it before New Year.

Rgds