Add-On Releases - [AJAX] Helpful Answers - Allow users to rate individual posts

Helpful Answers has been used to record over 6 MILLION times on more than 2,000 forums. If you're not using HA your users are looking for it!

Every day your users contribute hundreds if not thousands of posts making it hard for new members and guests to separate out the best answers from those that are less helpful. The Helpful Answers System offers your members a quick way to rate individual posts as either helpful or not allowing future visitors to understand the value of each post.

Designed to be flexible, HA has over 30 configurable settings:

• Use image or text ratings AJAX or traditional links.
• Offer yes/no or scaled 1-10 point ranking.
• Turn off negative ratings for a positive only system.
• Decide which forums are open for helpful answer ratings.
• Audit the system and identify top users and potential abusers.
• Ban specific members from using the system.
• Customize the message shown after a post is rated.
• Show a page with the top helpful posts.
• Show rating stats on a user's profile.
• Hide posts that rate "too low"
• Template driven so you can customize it all for your forum.

For advanced users template conditionals and variables let you further extend the functionality to color highlight good or bad posts, include ratings in user?s profiles and much more.

Modification Installation [Must Read]:

Step 1: Upload the addon files found in the upload/ folder to your forum directory
Step 2: Install the plugin through your vB Administration area
Step 3: Configure settings & enable the mod in individual forums

You must configure settings & enable forums before voting will show up.
Anonymous Stats Tracking (optional):

By default this addon will pass basic rating data (positive or negative) to a 3rd party site for statistical purposes. Only the most basic data is captured (the vote and your site name) and no user information or specific forum details are logged, not even an IP address. You can disable this through the admin.

Mod Philosophy -- Drive Your Own Success:

All of my mods are inspired by my work in digital marketing and are designed to drive registrations, interaction or other engagement activities the core platform does not address.

Each is designed to fit a general need by providing a starting point but it's on you to decide how to make things work to their best possible outcome. Feel free to suggest what you'd like to see next but don't wait to have what everyone else has; figure out what your forum needs and customize away.

[FractalizeR]

Another fix:
There was some problem with phrasing. Just a typo I think. Curly bracers were incorrectly placed near vb:rawphrase helpfulanswer_top which led to the name of the phrase displayed instead of it's contents on the page with helpful phrases list on forum (http://www.example.com/helpfulanswers.php). Corrected version follows:

		<template name="helpful_answers_topten_bit" templatetype="template" date="0" username="Ted S" version="2.1.4">
		<![CDATA[
			
			<tr>
				<td class="alt1">{vb:rawphrase helpfulanswer_top {vb:raw postid},{vb:raw userid}} <a href="./showthread.php?p={vb:raw postid}#post{vb:raw postid}">{vb:raw title}</a></td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw ftitle}</td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw avgrank}</td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw totalrank}</td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw lastvote}</td>
			</tr>			
			
		]]></template>
		
		<template name="helpful_answers_top_bit" templatetype="template" date="0" username="Ted S" version="2.1.4">
		<![CDATA[
			
			<tr>
				<td class="alt1">{vb:rawphrase helpfulanswer_top {vb:raw postid},{vb:raw userid}} <a href="./showthread.php?p={vb:raw postid}#post{vb:raw postid}">{vb:raw title}</a></td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw ftitle}</td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw goodrank} ({vb:raw goodpercent}%)</td>				
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw totalrank}</td>
				<td class="alt1" align="center">{vb:raw lastvote}</td>
			</tr>			
			
		]]></template>

Ted, can you please verify and incorporate my fixes?

[FractalizeR]

Another fix:

Problem:
Uncached templates when displaying http://www.example.com/helpfulanswers.php (if $_REQUEST['do'] is empty - templates were not cached).

Fix:
Add the $actiontemplates['none'] to the $actitontemplates section like below:

PHP Code:

// pre-cache templates used by specific actions
$actiontemplates = array(    
    'topanswers' => array(
        'helpful_answers',
        'helpful_answers_top',
        'helpful_answers_top_bit',
        'helpful_answers_topten_bit',
        'forumdisplay_sortarrow',
    )
);

$actiontemplates['none'] = & $actiontemplates['topanswers']; 


[Ted S]

Thanks FractalizeR. Ive been on the road but will get on this all this evening.

[FractalizeR]

Welcome

[linuxututs]

Thanks Ted; Used this back with 3.8.x version and loved it.
subscribed...
Thanks,

[Ted S]

2.3.1 is a bug fix release thanks to the hard work of FractalizeR who found and posted solves for these issues. These are minor bugs but an update is required for anyone who wishes to use profile stats.

To update upload the new version of helpfulanswers.php and install the latest xml plugin.

You can modify the profile display through the template helpful_statsbit

What's coming next for HA:
- The ability to close posts based on votes (nightly cron)
- Moderation for voting and banning of abusive members
- Daily voting cap by usergroup
- Additional voting styles / displays
- Updated integration of Reputation System to accommodate weighted scale, limits

[pc-forum.dk]

As I can see, i'm not the only one who experience that nothing shows in the threads. I have both Bulk Enabled it, and checked under forum manager that every single one of them has it enabled. But still, nothing shows up. What to do? What have I missed? What should I be looking for? Sorry for the inconvenience

[sticky]

Originally Posted by Ted S

2.3.1 is a bug fix release thanks to the hard work of FractalizeR who found and posted solves for these issues. These are minor bugs but an update is required for anyone who wishes to use profile stats.

To update upload the new version of helpfulanswers.php and install the latest xml plugin.

You can modify the profile display through the template helpful_statsbit

What's coming next for HA:
- The ability to close posts based on votes (nightly cron)
- Moderation for voting and banning of abusive members
- Daily voting cap by usergroup
- Additional voting styles / displays
- Updated integration of Reputation System to accommodate weighted scale, limits

These are excellent changes, thank you!

Would it be possible to add excluding certain usergroups from voting?

Also, add the ability to exclude negative reputations from voting?

Modertaion for voting and banning of abusive members is a great addition as is the ability to close posts! Is that close posts or close threads? As in, if it has too many negative ratings the post will no longer show?

[vivamexico55]

Originally Posted by pc-forum.dk

As I can see, i'm not the only one who experience that nothing shows in the threads. I have both Bulk Enabled it, and checked under forum manager that every single one of them has it enabled. But still, nothing shows up. What to do? What have I missed? What should I be looking for? Sorry for the inconvenience

Do you use a custom skin? Also which VB4 version do you use?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by pc-forum.dk

As I can see, i'm not the only one who experience that nothing shows in the threads. I have both Bulk Enabled it, and checked under forum manager that every single one of them has it enabled. But still, nothing shows up. What to do? What have I missed? What should I be looking for? Sorry for the inconvenience

Are you using a customized or default template?

What version of vb?