Add-On Releases - [AJAX] Helpful Answers - Post Rating System (plus many sub-features)

Note: While this modification is updated for compatibility, I am only developing features for the 4.x version. I understand many sites continue to use 3.8 for a variety of reasons but dual developing takes time away from adding anything new. I encourage you to develop out your own change and share them back as no modification is ideal for every forum out of the box.

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 (AJAX) to rate individual posts as either helpful or not allowing future visitors to understand the benefits of each post.

Designed for maximum flexibility:


This addon is built to be flexible and offers several customization options including:

• The ability to show a user's vote stats in posts
• The ability to use image or text ratings.
• The ability to offer yes/no or scaled 1-10 point ranking.
• The ability to turn off negative ratings for a positive only system.
• The ability to decide which forums are open for helpful answer ratings.
• The ability to audit the system and identify top users and potential abusers.
• The ability to ban specific members from using the system.
• The ability to customize the AJAX message shown after a post is rated.
• The ability to edit all text and messages through phrases.
• The ability to show a page with the top helpful posts.
• The ability to show rating stats on a user's profile.
• Integration with the reputation system for ratings.
• Template driven display that can easily be customized to 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.

Load & Scale:
This addon is designed to work with small to large sites and is currently being used by sites with more than 2 million posts. If you have questions about integrating with your big board please contact me.

Modification Installation:
This addon requires uploading multiple files, installing a vBulletin product and enabling the feature in any forums you wish. No template modifications are required. Please see the included install file for detailed instructions.

If you are not seeing the rating bar double check that you have enabled the feature in the forum you are in and insure the Manual Template override option is not enabled.

Rating Review & Deletion:
To identify and remove abuse a reporting system is included with this addon and can be found in your vBulletin ACP under the Helpful Answers tab. Through this panel you will be able to view a user's overall rating history and individual ratings and can remove either if necessary. Users can also be explicitly banned from the system.

Reputation System Integration:
Helpful Answers can be extended to directly tie into your reputation system giving users positive or negative points based on the ratings of their posts. There are numerous options on how to handle ratings that can be found in a separate Helpful Answers Reputation part of your vBulletin Settings page.

External Integration:
vB Plaza Modification - http://www.vbplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6359
vB Experience - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=199556

Anonymous Stats Tracking (optional):
vBulletin forums reach millions of consumers around the world yet little is known about their habits and opinions. This addon was released to the public out of requests but also to further the research of forum user's behaviors and actions through collecting the most basic data on thousands of sites.

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.

While you may disable this feature through the administrative options I ask that you consider leaving it in place to help this research effort and insure the continued support of the addon.

The tracking feature uses the php library cURL on a 5 second timeout. If cURL is not installed this option is automatically disabled.

Updates:
- 5/13/2011 - Release of 2.0.6 minor bug fix
- 08/31/2009 - Release of 2.0.0
- 08/07/2009 - Release of 1.9.5 stable

Other Versions:
This addon will work with 3.7 but to avoid issues with different code versions please see the 3.7 version thread here.

Before you download this modification please remember this is a free tool provided as a courtesy to you and support responses are subject to the availability of the author and other members. If you are looking for a professionally supported system this is not the solution for you.

[tjwiforums]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

You will have to search through this thread as there have been many updates from Ted.

The thread is over 100 pages long, the author is responsible for providing working fixes here. Out of the box, this does not work, unfortunately. Yes, the fix posted DOES work, but the user shouldn't have to hunt through 100 pages of garbage simply to make something work OOB.

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by tjwiforums

The thread is over 100 pages long, the author is responsible for providing working fixes here. Out of the box, this does not work, unfortunately. Yes, the fix posted DOES work, but the user shouldn't have to hunt through 100 pages of garbage simply to make something work OOB.

Hey, this mod is supplied FREE, the author is under no obligation to keep this thread updated or his attachments, and yes it is up to YOU to search through all those threads if you need answers to your questions, it's not the authors responsibility to wet nurse you!

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Greek76

Ted I'm having problem when users are voting.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /home/sample/public_html/forums/helpfulanswers.php on line 498

I downloaded the version on your thread starter. Im using it for 3.8.7. Any ideas? I also downloaded from the link that user posted above but then when voting they are getting this error.


Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: Invalid curl configuration option in [path]/helpfulanswers.php on line 404

Have you got your server configured to use curl? if not turn the option off in the settings, it's there to provide stats for usage of this mod, it's not compulsory so you can turn that off, or ask your host to recompile Apache with cURL.

[Greek76]

Not sure I'd have to check my vps settings. Im not even sure where to look for that.

[Simon Lloyd]

Change this url to your site and it will take you to your php info page and you can see if cURL is enabled http://www.YOURSITE.com/YOUR_FORUM_F...php?do=phpinfo if not go to admincp>vBulletin Options>Helpful Answers Settings and at the bottom turn this off Anonymous Reporting and all will be fine

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by tjwiforums

The thread is over 100 pages long, the author is responsible for providing working fixes here. Out of the box, this does not work, unfortunately. Yes, the fix posted DOES work, but the user shouldn't have to hunt through 100 pages of garbage simply to make something work OOB.

It sounds like this is not the right addon for you. I'd suggest trying a solution with professional support to meet your needs. Best of luck to you.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

Have you got your server configured to use curl? if not turn the option off in the settings, it's there to provide stats for usage of this mod, it's not compulsory so you can turn that off, or ask your host to recompile Apache with cURL.

Thanks!

[pcalloway]

Ted -
I'm having similar trouble to the previous poster. However turning off anonymous reporting didn't fix the problem - still getting the error.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /home/#######/public_html/l#######.com/helpfulanswers.php on line 498



EDIT
NEvermind - found the fix... thanks.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=1525

[jl255]

Originally Posted by jl255

Easy solution:

1. Allow a max of 1 'like' from 1 member per day. So if JOHN liked one of my posts today, he cannot like any other posts belonging to me for that day. This will prevent members from exchanging reps and going through all my previous posts and just repping everyone of them.

Any possibility of this?

[gabrielt]

Originally Posted by cowcowcow

The guys getting the parse syntax error, download the file here
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=1335

i used it and it worked perfectly after that

Thanks, it worked. It is simply silly that the author of this mod didn't use this file.