Add-On Releases - vBExperience 3.8

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Triple Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008, September 2009, July 2010) on vBulletin.org.

A version for vBulletin 4.0 has been released! Thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245023


vBExperience 3.8.6 is currently (August 2010) in development.


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 3.8.6:
http://www.insidetwoworlds.com/xperience.php

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
3.8.4.3 / 3.8.5 Beta 5, 10th July 2011
- Prio 1 security patch, please update just xperience.php!


3.8.5 Beta 4, 25th September 2009
- Promotions: Listing now also the last Usergroup. Please notice the new settings for nethermost/uppermost usergroups.
- Several minor cosmetic changes
- Clear Activities (except Shop)
- Fixed error with GetActivityAll() on profile
- Several Beta 3 fixes

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



For more see history.txt

[kensaurus]

where is the CDP addons?

[mikeinjersey]

guys, I initially thought the Activity bar represented how often you've been logged in . (per set # of days) I now just re-read that it has to do with posting as well.

So if I set it to 60 days...and 1 post per day... that would be = 99% or 100% ?

please reply..thanks.

[tehviruss]

Thanks for the response. I read readme_levels.txt but still am not quite sure how to work Promotions. I have "Use the promotion system?" set to Yes. Am I supposed to add something in the "Usergroups > Promotions" area? I don't see a criteria for vbExperience.

Sorry for the hassle, and especially if I'm missing something obvious, but I just can't figure it out -_-

Thanks for the help.

[SCRIPT3R]

I did not see this mentioned anywhere; it should be.

Use the promotion system?
This will replace the internal vB promotions. If you enable this system, make sure that you delete any promotions that could collide with Experience. Also, take care that the promotions are overwritten the primary group of every user.

For some, it would be more beneficial to have this applied via secondary usergroups.

[carubmun]

How come in some users "experience" tab in their profile... you dont find entries for all of the categories?

For instance, some of my users show Points for user, Points for threads, Points for posts, etc...
Yet others only show Points for user, or Points for threads... when these are posters who have posted enough to have something show up in threads/posts?

[wwolf27]

First off I can't wait to get this up and running for my members...THANK YOU!!
I have tired to find my "?" among the thread but either I have missed it and I am truly sorry for wasting your time or no one has had this issue.

The 3rd screen shot (ranking) you have at the top shows levels, activity, post points ect. the last row "Points for miscellaneous" shows the points that members have or don't have to "buy" things.

My issue is that is going anywhere. I set mine at 1900 just to see if I was missing something, I posted and what not and I am NOT accumulating points. No one is and YES, I do have enable earn points "on" can someone help me??? My images are working, I have bars, I have can buy items...it all works BUT THIS earning points issue!!

I do apologize in advance and also would like to say Thank you!

[Alfa1]

After upgrade to 3.8.3 I can no longer complete the recount. It keeps hanging. Please advise.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by Phantasmagoric

WOW, Phalynx you have evolved this into something truly spectacular, I am super impressed by your hard work and greatly appreciate your sharing this with us all, and for FREE which is even more fabulous, thank you very very much.

Ahem, yup, here comes my plea, is there any chance of linking items in the shops to actual download files. I am using the shops as virtual skin shops where members can earn forum points to purchase the skins we have available on our site (they're all financially free but require efforts on the site to earn points you see).

Presently I have it set to send me PM's when a purchase is made and I then PM the members an attached zip of the skin they have purchased. It's okay as such like this but as we grow, and we're growing quite quickly, this method is going to become impossible for me to keep up with. Having linked items would be absolutely the gravy on the PERFECT meal.

Please, can you give me some idea of if/when you may implement this functionality.

Yes, this will be included in next versions, but I have no date for this.

Originally Posted by Phantasmagoric

Me again, is there any way we can stop icons from a specific category from showing in the postbit but have other categories still showing.

I am using over-sized images in the shop categories for the Virtual Skin Shops to give members a better view of the skins, 200px width in fact, they are simply too huge for the postbit, but in our Ye'Olde Curios Shop category the icons are 64px, these I should like to keep in the postbit.
(you can see what I mean here: http://skins4forums.com/xperience.php?go=shop)

Is that at all possible?

You have already the possibility to define an icon, a thumb and a picture.
There is no possibility to exclude such icons.

Originally Posted by zerovenom

Is there a way to have an item in the shop that allows users to change their user title after purchase? That would be lovely.

Currently not supported.

Originally Posted by Matrixthestar

Is there a way to recount & generate awards automatic

It is already included. You need to generate awards only if you change something and want this immediatly have in place.

Originally Posted by TAIFUN_T

Phalynx, Thank you! Install... Very nice hack

Tell me how to move the display of awards

Not possible, as the awards are attached to the username.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by kensaurus

where is the CDP addons?

ZIP, Extras, Addons. Import the Addons as normal, default vBulletin Addons.

Originally Posted by mikeinjersey

guys, I initially thought the Activity bar represented how often you've been logged in . (per set # of days) I now just re-read that it has to do with posting as well.

So if I set it to 60 days...and 1 post per day... that would be = 99% or 100% ?

please reply..thanks.

It depends on the postcount the top 10 people have. See also:

Originally Posted by readme

Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count 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 (controlable via AdminCP) .

Originally Posted by tehviruss

Thanks for the response. I read readme_levels.txt but still am not quite sure how to work Promotions. I have "Use the promotion system?" set to Yes. Am I supposed to add something in the "Usergroups > Promotions" area? I don't see a criteria for vbExperience.

Sorry for the hassle, and especially if I'm missing something obvious, but I just can't figure it out -_-

Thanks for the help.

You will need to edit the level xml files. The promotion system will be re-worked in next bigger version.

Originally Posted by GearTripper

I did not see this mentioned anywhere; it should be.

For some, it would be more beneficial to have this applied via secondary usergroups.

This is mentioned in the settings, where you can activate it. Also, the promotion system will be re-worked in next bigger version.

Originally Posted by carubmun

How come in some users "experience" tab in their profile... you dont find entries for all of the categories?

For instance, some of my users show Points for user, Points for threads, Points for posts, etc...
Yet others only show Points for user, or Points for threads... when these are posters who have posted enough to have something show up in threads/posts?

To get support, you will need to click "Mark as Installed".

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by wwolf27

First off I can't wait to get this up and running for my members...THANK YOU!!
I have tired to find my "?" among the thread but either I have missed it and I am truly sorry for wasting your time or no one has had this issue.

The 3rd screen shot (ranking) you have at the top shows levels, activity, post points ect. the last row "Points for miscellaneous" shows the points that members have or don't have to "buy" things.

My issue is that is going anywhere. I set mine at 1900 just to see if I was missing something, I posted and what not and I am NOT accumulating points. No one is and YES, I do have enable earn points "on" can someone help me??? My images are working, I have bars, I have can buy items...it all works BUT THIS earning points issue!!

I do apologize in advance and also would like to say Thank you!

"Earn Points" does only shows the user how he can earn points.
Also, the calculations for the points is done via 10 minute cron. So it does not take immediate effect. You need to manually recount if you want to look if some points are active.

Originally Posted by Alfa1

After upgrade to 3.8.3 I can no longer complete the recount. It keeps hanging. Please advise.

Did you tried to decrease the number of items that are recounted at once?