Trader Ratings v1.2.0

Trader Ratings - A user feedback hack
Copyright ?2004 Jason Rabel, All Rights Reserved.
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Latest TR Verson: 1.2.0
vB Versions: 3.0.0 - 3.0.9
Author: Jason Rabel
Contact: PM me here, I'll respond.
Site: EXTREME Overclocking
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Updates:
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1.2.0 - September 4, 2004
- Added Trader Ratings Stats Page (finally!)
- Added PM notification when someone receives feedback
- Changed how positive feedback percentage score is calculated (bugfix)
- Ability to "close" the Trader Ratings pages (for maintainence or whatever) - TRATING_CLOSED
- Ability to set the URL field when submitting feedback to required or optional - TRATING_REQ_URL

1.1.0 - June 7, 2004
- Added time-based user edit/delete abilities, set via TRATING_UEDIT constant in traderratings.php file
- Userdate field is now an int field to be consistent with vBulletin
- Userrating field changed to tinyint to save space
- Fixed timeframes for showing historical ratings
- Made some various code consolidation
- Added missing ".TABLE_PREFIX." statement
- Templates.txt file shows code for postbit & MEMBERINFO, with conditional examples
- All 3 templates changed heavily
- Added some more phrases & fixed missing phrases

1.0.1 - June 2, 2004
- Fixed a "divide by zero" display error
- Postbit template fixed so guests do not have a trader rating

1.0.0 - June 1, 2004
- Initial Public Release

Description:
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Trader Ratings has evolved from my vB2 Buy/Sell/Trade User Rating System. This is a rating system for when members buy / sell / trade items from each other (presumably on a FS section of your forum). It is based on the honor system since there is no way to truly tell if they did engage in a transaction. (But I'm working on a way to fix that.) Trader Ratings came about because it was a pain to try and maintain a single thread listing good / bad traders and so far has worked out quite well.

Features:
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? Rate another member: Positive / Negative / Neutral
? Specify Buyer, Seller, or Trade
? Leave comments about the deal
? Records date when rating created
? Specify a URL to the deal
? Display ratings over time
? Filter based on Buyer/Seller/Trade/or feedback they left for others
? Users can edit/delete ratings left for others (time based limitation)
? Admins & Mods can edit/delete anyone's ratings (just incase)
? Stats page showing best & worst rated members, and recent ratings
? PM notification when a person is rated

Basic Info:
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I haven't written a FAQ or any real documentation yet, but the way the system works is very simple. The only part that might confuse someone is that the Feedback Score is based only on UNIQUE members. Also, there are simple checks in place to make sure they actually do select proper info and enter a comment. A user is not able to rate themself (obviously). Permissions for viewing / rating are similar to standard forum viewing / posting permissions. Also it checks to make sure users exist and all that good stuff.

Installation Info:
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This hack is very simply to implement requiring only:
? 1 new file
? 5 new templates / 2-3 template changes (navbar, posbit/postbit_legacy, MEMBERINFO, memberlist_resultsbit)
? 52 new phrases
? 1 new DB table / 1 table DB change & index

An install/upgrade PHP file is included to do all the template/phrase/DB stuff, so basically you run that, upload the file, and edit your postbit template. BAM!

Screen Shots / Demos:
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See Screenshots below, or you can view them on my forums: My Trader Rating Page

Standard Disclaimer:
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BACKUP YOUR DATABASE & FILES BEFORE IMPLEMENTING THIS HACK!!!

Forums Using This Hack:
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EXTREME Overclocking Forums
i-Club -- Forums
Accord Tuner
NSX Prime
Honda-Acura.net
Guns Network
PimpRig

(PM me your forum if you want me to add you to the list)

Donations:
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This hack will always be free, however your donations are kindly accepted and will help towards further development. If you donate, please leave me some info (either your forum site or username at vB.org) so that I can thank you.


Plans For Future Releases:
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? rebuttal / followup comments
? item description (possibly instead of thread url)
? button on thread that buyer/seller clicks to tie the transaction to two people

[dethfire]

I have looked into it a bit more....and now it just tells the # I got from different members. Looking under trader ratings at the top though, every single member has a trader rating higher then the # of different traders that left them feedback. Im just hoping it is a mistake and the trader rating # will be set so its the total # again, not the # of different users

[dethfire]

how do I get the postbit to show all positive feedback instead of the calculated score?

[sonicdriven]

What am I missing? The hack works great but when i view my posts the trader rating does not show. I have added the

<if condition="$post['userid']"><div>Trader Rating: (<a href="traderratings.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]">$post[ratetradetotal]</a>)</div></if>

to the MEMBERINFO template and to the postbit_legacy but neither made any differnece.

I am a total noob to VB, so i am sure it is something simple i missed, any feedback would be appreciated.

1shotdesign.com/trade

Great Hack BTW
Mark

[sonicdriven]

woot, NVM problem solved.

[hasan2k]

Originally Posted by eoc_Jason

By default if a user has generic posting permissions, then they can use the Trader Ratings system.

However if you want to limit it even further, you can simply add conditional statements in your templates (with the is_member_of() function). Also you can add the same code to the traderratings.php file to make it 100% complete, but usually just editing the templates is enough so that only certain user groups can view / rate people.

Where in the traderratings.php file do I put the

"<if condition="is_member_of($post, 11)">
(trader ratings row)
</if>"

Code. I do not want to use the template change so that no one can type the URL and go to the feedback page.

What I want is:

ONLY 3 USER GROUPS (for example 1,2,3)CAN VIEW, PROVIDE FEEDBACK, RATE and all the other functionalities of this script. NO other user groups (like 4,5,6) can do anything at all. Can this be done with a simple code in the script file?

ONE MORE QUESTION:

The comment field where feedbacks are written can only take 80 characters max. How do I change it to take 300 character?

[RS25com]

Originally Posted by Cyn

The percentage certainly seems more informative. I'd prefer it. :thumbsup

I am still looking into this. It turns out that the percent is ALREADY calculated on the trader ratings page for the individual. So the math is ALREADY being done. I put the code into the post bit template, though, and it did not work.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

[bulbasnore]

Thanks for the code on making the rating link only show up conditionally. I used that. I think a lot of folks might like to do that.

The biggest problem I've heard with rating is abuse; the URL feature is designed to cut down on this.

We have this FINE HACK INSTALLED in test. One of our mods jumped right in and posted a bogus URL in the feedback. We don't want to have to ban people for doing this.

My thought to cut down on that is to make sure the URL is valid. I tried doing some more validation on the URL tested in line 368 of traderratings.php.

PHP Code:

if ($userbuysell == 255 || $userrating == 255 || $usercomments == '' || !preg_match("/http:\/\/*myboard.com\/showthread.php?t*/i",$userurl)) { eval (print_standard_error('error_requiredfields')); } 


such that at least it would have to point to a thread in our domain (we have production and test boards). My code is a flop and I'm out of time to debug it today.

However, it seems like the URL to the board is known to vB. Grabbing this URL would allow both basic validation AND to allow the documentation in the URL box to use the actual board URL in the example. I'm new to vB so I don't know this variable and will have to dig for it.

Also, once the thread is known, one could check the thread starter and thread replies for the users involved in giving/receiving the feedback. Disallow the feedback unless the giver is either the thread starter or one of the posters. Don't know how to catch all 3 of these things: the reviewer, thread starter and thread reply posters.

Anyway, if someone can give me some pointers, I'd appreciate it & when its done will contrib the code back.

[boo.3]

wow this is awsome 10 stars

[WreckRman2]

Originally Posted by RS25com

Here's a problem I noticed.

I have a user who had some bad deals, so he got some negative feedback. However, he also had some good deals as well. The problem is that he had more good than bad deals, so he still has a +2 rating. If people don't look at his rating in detail, they may think he's good to go and purchase from him, even though he may be committing fraud.

The solution would be to change the way the ratings are calculated. Instead of just +1 or -1, it would be smarter to do it like eBay does - 100% less any negative marks. In this case, he might have 4 good and 2 bad. Instead of having a +2 rating, he would have a 66% rating, where everyone else would have 100%.

How hard would it be to change the way this hack does the math? I would be very interested in seeing it like this.

Excellent idea and in fact I came here to request the EXACT same thing you already have. I went to buy something and in the post the user had a 0 rating. My first thougth was he didn't have any ratings. When I clicked on his profile he had 2... one good, one bad so they off set.

Great idea and I hope it can be included!

[alkatraz]

^^ great idea!! makes a lot of sense