Add-On Releases - vBExperience

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008) on vBulletin.org.


Description
vBExperience is your feature packaged solution for motivation and satisfying your users. vBExperience is an advanced Level/Promotion and Activity System with Shop, Awards and Activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

This mod was developed by me because I was never satisfied with the post count. Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? All this can be answered with this mod.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked Mark as Installed.


Compatibility
This mod will work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x. For vBulletin 3.6 you will need vBExperience 3.7



Demo:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo Profile:
http://www.insideearth.net/member.php?u=1&langid=5

Demo Rankings:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo Awards:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...wards&langid=1

Demo Promotions:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...=shop&langid=1

Demo Shop:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=shop&langid=5

Demo Stats:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...stats&langid=5

Demo Earn Points:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=earn&langid=5

Other Demo Site:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience.php?langid=1


There are mainly four things visible for the users: The users score, his level, his next level up in %/points and his activity in %.


Calculation of the score
Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Created threads
- Thread views of own threads
- Thread replies of own threads
- Thread votes of own threads
- Thread tags
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are on forum for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Members of own social groups
- Albumpictures
- Friends
- Completing Profile

Misc
- Calendar entries


Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons (some are already installed):
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (via CDP Addon)
- Post Ranking System (via CDP Addon)
- Helpful Answers (via CDP Addon)
- AWCoding-Donation System LITE and PRO (via CDP Addon)
- Cyb Paypal Donate (included)
- DownloadsII (included)
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost vBGallery (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost Pro (via CDP Addon)
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You (via CDP Addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via CDP Addon)
- SAPR: Advanced Post Rating system (via CDP Addon)
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition) (included)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- v3arcade Submissions Points (via CDP Addon)
- vBulletin Blog (included)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (included)
- Other Addons can be easily added via CDP - Custom Data Provider plugins.

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads.
- Scrupulous Poster: Gives points for editing posts. Award users that are editing own posts instead of doing double post.
- Deletion Addicted: Gives points when an user/nod soft-deletes post, thread, visitormessage, groupmessage or picturecomment.
- Arm of Law: Give points for moderators who are using the infraction system
- Discussion Ender: Give points for people who are the last on a discussion
- RadioActivity: Reduce points for every day the user is not online

Also, there are already addons available that are working as Custom Data Provider (CDP). A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it to the vBExperience datastore. All point providers can be used for Awards and Shop.

You have to install these hacks for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.


vBAdvanced
There are three vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users, Most Experienced Users and Last 20 Activities. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award. The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.
Awards can be created for every data provider.


Rankings
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.
Since 3.8.3, there is a also a ranking for Social Groups

Shop
A virtual Shop will motivate your users to earn more points. You can define categories and put virtual items with pictures in it. A currency can be defined seperatly for every item, e.g. 20 points from threads or 100 points from gallery. Users can purchase the items, they appear in their profile. The costs of the item are substracted from their xperience points. Additionally you can set quantity of the items.
The Shop will motivate your users to collect specific points to buy an item. Optionally you can show the last purchased items on postbit.
You can put virtual items in it, like WoW addons: Sell WoW Items in exchange of f.e. thread points. Great for RPG forums.
Non-Virtual Items like bold Usernames or Downloads for Points are already on my todo list.

Earn Points
There is an overview for the user on how points can be collected, with a list of users own points. All data is beeing pulled from the database (settings, phrases)

Statistics
The statistics is showing a Top-X list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


Promotion system
To motivate users to do more on your forum I created the promotion system. By reaching defined xperience points the user will be moved to another usergroup - where you can set graphics, shadows, highlighting, etc... What is interesting in combination with this: you can give the user more possibilities f.e. larger avatars or bigger PM box. A log of the promotions is available.


Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count/visitormessages/group discussion/Blog entries of the ten most active user and comparing it to own post count. This can be set to count only the last X days, f.e. 21 days.


Settings
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's.


Performance, Big Boards
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt


Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains vBExperience.

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board.

Known Issues:
- Awards: On "Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread" awards are only shown for the user who is viewing this.
- Awards: If activated in with rich username, they are attached to the username. If the username is linked, the awards are also linked. If a link is underlined, the awards are also underlined. This behaviour is hardcoded in vBulletin and cannot be fixed.
- Settings are showing only a blank page, read here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...6979#note74140
- If you completely remove vBExperience, you need also to uninstall the product XML manually from the pluginssystem

Credits for icons
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience


History
3.8.5 Beta 3, 18th September 2009
- Fixed Promotions
- Fixed Notifications
- Added Activities to Promotions
- All Activities are not obeying limit
- AdminCP/Experience has a recount for Promotions and Achievements
- Fixed listing of Achievements with Firefox
- Several Beta 2 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 2, 02nd September 2009
- Just a short note: Condition in Achievements and Promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in counts of items.
If you choose 10 Day, you must enter the points needed for this.
For example: You have an achievement for 10 days. You have set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10*2 = 20
You will have to set 20 as the condition.
- New tabbed interface. If you want to change the style, edit the template xperience_navbar_css
- Promotions now showing usergroups and conditions for a promotion to the next group
- You can import old vBExperience Legacy promotions (that were created within level.xml)
- Achievements in Profile
- Achievements below Avatar
- Several Beta 1 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 1, 28th August 2009
- Achievements!
- Promotions!
- Notification on Awards, Promotions and Achievements
- GAP: Empty pointfields will not be displayed anymore
- Activity: Showing percent values with a decimal
- Activities now also for users
- Awards below Avatar
- Default Awards are now also creating new category
- Shop: Fixed issue in not returning cash on sells
- Reworked Edit Shop Items


Todo for Beta 3:
- Download files with vBExperience as a credit system ("LDM Links and Downloads Manager", "DownloadsII")
- Activity eraser
- AdminCP Permissions
- Advanced User Permissions


For more see history.txt

[jerx]

Originally Posted by aproape

Nice addon! Could you give some hints on how to make a plugin for vbexperience? For example, what hooks should be used, and for what goal? Or if this was already discussed, where should one read about it?

There is an example in the extras directory.

[4x4 Mecca]

Originally Posted by jerx

This has already been implemented long ago and the feature has been listed in the first post as well.

thanks jerx, but i think they meant the "activity" catagory which measures how often a member visits and posts on the site. So if they come daily and post daily, they get access to the premium forum.

[MissKalunji]

anyone can help me do a custom for Vbookie? i can provide test forum and all?

[crazzyustad]

Originally Posted by jerx

This has already been implemented long ago and the feature has been listed in the first post as well.

u got me wrong, i am talking about promotion by activity meter and not by the point system.
The fault of the point system is that once a user reaches a certain point value, he is promoted to a particular group, but after that he can remain inactive and enjy all the facilities.
But by activity meter, he/she always have to be active

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by WNxWakko

Im not figuring this out.

Here is what im manually putting in the postbit

<img border="0" src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/level/award_$awardname" title="$awardtitle">

Ive also tried this,

<img border="0" src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/level/award_$awardname.gif" title="$awardtitle">

However the image path that appears is this,

http://warriornation.net/Forum/images/misc/level/award_
and
http://warriornation.net/Forum/image...vel/award_.gif

Notice the actual image name is not appearing. What variable do I need to put in that image path to have it display?

Ok, I got your problem. You are trying to access $awardname in postbit, but that variable is beeing set on hook "fetch_musername". You will need to hook in "postbit_display_complete" and read the awards. Take a look at "fetch_musername" of vBExperience.

Originally Posted by crazzyustad

@phlynx i have already marked it installed, long before.....

Maybe. But it seems you clicked after that on "Mark as Uninstalled" as I cannot see your "Installed"-flag.

[gamerfu]

How come since I upgraded to 3.7.3 P1 in AdminCP -> vBEscperience Drop Down menu the Settings: General, Settings: Awards, Settings: Bars, Settings: Points, and Settings: Shop links show blank pages when I click on them?

The links work fine if I use AdminCP -> vBulletin Options

I have uninstalled and killed, deleted files, played with version 17, and ersion 14 and the links are not displaying.

[Phalynx]

I have no clue. It's definitly working with 3.8 Beta 1.

[jerx]

Now, I had some time to test drive vBExperience.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Display levels overview (how many points you need to reach a certain level)
2. Adjust breadcrump to vb' s look. Right now it looks like
   homepage - forum
   L vbexperience earn points
   Whereas it should look like
   homepage - forum - vbexperience
   L earn points
3. Earn points for profile views (your own profile viewed by someone else).
4. Earn points for viewing album pictures.
5. Earn points for commenting album pictures.
6. Only earn points for received renomee, when positive renomee. Substract if negative?
7. Earn points for poll creation.
8. Earn points for received votes.
9. Earn points for voting.
10. Earn points for calendar events.
11. Earn points for avatar upload.
12. Earn points for profile picture upload.
13. Earn points for signature.
14. Earn points for birthday.
15. Earn points for custom profile fields.
16. Earn points for social group message.
17. Earn points for social group picture.
18. Earn points for private messages. Our users should use the visitor message feature in the first place. Therefore we like to substract points when a user sends a private messages.
19. It looks like you cannot set negative user points for actions. It would be nice to be able to do so, because by doing so, you would be able to limit certain actions. Eg private messaging, attachment views, creation of visitor messages, gallery views, etc.
20. Do not allow negative values for user points. This is to support the use of negative points for certain actions. Let' s say I have set negative points for private messages, users should not be able to send out private messages if they have less points than the substracted amount for sending private messages.
21. Starting balance and monthly balance for points. Eg if you set negative points for pms, new users would not be able to pm other people right away. Therefore they should get a certain amount of points for the beginning. To keep users participating on the forums, they should get a certain amount of points each month (like a paycheck).
22. Donations of points. Our members liked this feature pretty much. You were able to donate your own points to someone else.
23. Negative values will mess up the system quite a lot. Recounting points would most likely lead to false values. Eg by deleting private messages, you would be able to regain private message sending ability.

I noticed some problems with the level import, if you do not uninstall the level first it sometimes does not update the levels. If you uninstall first, recounting seems to be enough. No need to update points on the maintenance screen.

Is it possible that the instructions for finding the right level setting are not correct? These are the instructions:

What level would you advise with X members?
These depends on many other factors. Just import a product, run a recount and take a look at the rankings:
- Top Members are up to level 30-40: Import a higher level.
- Top Members are up to level 60-70: Great. Just keep the level.
- Top Members are up to level 80: There is only small room for growing.
- Top Members are above level 90: Take a lower level.

I think if you get 30-40 for your top users, you need to pick a lower level (if you used level 4, try using level 3). If you do the other way around your top levels will be smaller than 30-40.

If you get levels above 90, you should take a higher level. After the recount you should get levels below 90.

I would suggest taking a lower level, too, if you get top levels of up to 80. Then your top members will probably have a level of up to 60, which would give them the chance to participate in vBExperience a little bit longer.

Originally Posted by Phalynx

I have no clue. It's definitly working with 3.8 Beta 1.

I did not know that. I thought it did not work, because you said that beta 3 will be adapted to 3.8 beta 1. I guess you meant the new features of vb 3.8. Then I might try updating to vb 3.8 before your next vbexperience release.

Originally Posted by crazzyustad

u got me wrong, i am talking about promotion by activity meter and not by the point system.
The fault of the point system is that once a user reaches a certain point value, he is promoted to a particular group, but after that he can remain inactive and enjy all the facilities.
But by activity meter, he/she always have to be active

I see. But I think you need to take other things into consideration, too. Right now, I am testing a new install and imported data from the real site. Therefore only the test users I log into have an activity of more than 50 %. But it is not hard to get over 50 %. I think if you register a new account and login daily, you will even get 100% activity.

[Phalynx]

Thanks for your deep feedback.

Originally Posted by jerx

- Display levels overview (how many points you need to reach a certain level)

Already implemented

Originally Posted by jerx

- Adjust breadcrump to vb' s look. Right now it looks like

Uhm, if I have much much time.

Originally Posted by jerx

- Earn points for social group message.
- Earn points for custom profile fields.
- Earn points for avatar upload.
- Earn points for profile picture upload.
- Earn points for birthday.

In 3.7.18 Beta 3 already implemented

Originally Posted by jerx

- Earn points XXX

Maybe in a later release

Originally Posted by jerx

- Earn points for private messages. Our users should use the visitor message feature in the first place. Therefore we like to substract points when a user sends a private messages.

Not possible as vBExperience calculates existing data. As users must delete message (inbox limits...) this is not very usefull.

Originally Posted by jerx

- It looks like you cannot set negative user points for actions.

Correct.

Originally Posted by jerx

- Do not allow negative values for user points. This is to support the use of negative points for certain actions. Let' s say I have set negative points for private messages, users should not be able to send out private messages if they have less points than the substracted amount for sending private messages.

This would need to hook in every process and also replace usergroup permissions. Just wait for the release which will include promotions based on other values than points and create a group which can send PM and one that cannot.

Originally Posted by jerx

- Donations of points. Our members liked this feature pretty much. You were able to donate your own points to someone else.

Nice idea. Give aways are included since 3.7.18, but only for items.

Originally Posted by jerx

I noticed some problems with the level import, if you do not uninstall the level first it sometimes does not update the levels. If you uninstall first, recounting seems to be enough. No need to update points on the maintenance screen.

Updating points IS recounting. It's the same action behind it.

Originally Posted by jerx

Is it possible that the instructions for finding the right level setting are not correct? These are the instructions:

A similar description has been already posted somewhere in this thread. Will include it in readme_levels.txt.

Originally Posted by jerx

I did not know that. I thought it did not work, because you said that beta 3 will be adapted to 3.8 beta 1. I guess you meant the new features of vb 3.8. Then I might try updating to vb 3.8 before your next vbexperience release.

Beta 3 will run with vB 3.8

Originally Posted by jerx

I see. But I think you need to take other things into consideration, too. Right now, I am testing a new install and imported data from the real site. Therefore only the test users I log into have an activity of more than 50 %. But it is not hard to get over 50 %. I think if you register a new account and login daily, you will even get 100% activity.

That is not right. Activity is only calculated on base of postings, not logins.


vBExperience Beta 3 will be released in around one week, as I have many things on my todo list to make it more fit with vB 3.8

[4x4 Mecca]

Hey there! I'm trying to make a conditional to insert something into the postbit or even forumdisplay using the activity field, here is my code

<if condition="$vbulletin->xperience_stats[points_user_activity] == 100">1</if>
<if condition="$xperience_stats[points_user_activity] == 100">2</if>

Neither one works, any ideas on how I would do it?