Major Additions - vBExperience 4

vBExperience 4.1 for vBulletin 4

Tested with all Version of vBulletin Forum and Suite 4.0.4 -> 4.1.11

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

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

What is vBExperience?
vBExperience is your free feature packaged solution for motivating your users. vBExperience is an advanced and highly customizable level/promotion and activity measure system with awards, achievements, promotions 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.

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? How can the user's activitiy be compared to others? All this can be answered with this mod. Additionally your users get awards and collect achievements for beeing active on your board.

vBExperience is fully translated to many languages. Beside english there are language files for german, french, italian, portuguese, spanish, swedish and chinese simplified. Polish, turkish, persian are not fully translated.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked "Mark as Installed":
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/vborg_mis...hreadid=245023


/***** Demo *****\
No Demosite currently available.


/***** INSTALLATION *****\
Please read the file readme_install_uninstall_upgrade.txt for detailed instructions!


/***** Primary Support *****\
As vBulletin.org does not offer any help managing modifications, espacially the complex one like vBExperience, I have to decided to open a site together with TheMayhem that is dedicated just for this.
It features a forum not just a single thread, a bug and feature tracker. And you also test our modifications over there.



/***** Featurelist *****\

*** Plugins ***
vBExperience can be easily extended by using it's custom data provider interface (CDP). With the CDP everyone is able to create plugins that integrates into vBExperience calculation process. There are already several plugins like Post Thanks Integration.
The plugins data can also be used to create achievements, awards and also promotions.


*** Insight Experience ***
The insight into your personal experience and what's going on on the community. Currently support basic services like activity and some featured achievements, there are plans to extend this with helpful hints on how progress, depending on users points. Also a statistics module is in work.


*** Awards ***
Motivate your users to be the best in a defined category! With the Awards you are able to reward users who collect the most points, f.e. by making new friends and leading a social group.
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.

Currently there are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award, Discussion Ender, Master Tagger, User with most referrers, Downloads, Arm of Law, King of Publishing.
You can create as much awards as you like. Just select a title, choose from one of the 250 images and select the required points for it.


*** Achievements ***
Achievements are very similar to the awards a reward to the user. Unlike an award an achievement is not limited to a single user.
Similar to awards, you can create as much achievements as you like. Just select a title, choose from one of the over 500 images and create the required condition for it.


*** Promotion system ***
The promotion system enables you to move users to other usergroups, depending on their experience points. You can create conditions that have to be met to be promoted. Benefits and extended permissions will be shown automatically to the user. Promotions are showing also possible jumps from current to the next possible group with the required conditions.
Using this you can create multiple groups and assign additional features. Just an example: Usergroup 1 has no custom avatars and just a capacity of 20 private messages. With a condition of 1000 Experience points the user moves to Usergroup 2, where the user is able to upload his own avatar and store more private messages.


*** Rankings ***
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.


*** Social Groups Rankings ***
Starts the competition between social groups! This feature ranks the groups depending on their average user experience points.


*** Earn Points ***
This is an overview for the user on how points can be collected. It features also a possibility to compare own points to the community's average. All data is beeing pulled automatically from the database.


*** Give Away Points aka Point Donation ***
Users can donate their points to other community members. Choose the field which will be used for give away and select the amount that will be transferred. Admins can donate custom points to the user.


*** Statistics aka Leaderboards ***
The leaderboard 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.


*** Shop aka Market ***
vBExperience integrates easily with the Point Market System v3 by TheMayham (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=232676).
It features a virtual item store, username items, bank, gifts, gambling, lottery, and a lot more!
As of vBExperience 4.0, the vBExperience 3.8 Shop has been discontinued.



/***** Collecting Points *****\
vBExperience is collecting points for a user counting his actions in the community. The collected points can be used to reward users with awards, achievements and promotions - even if the collected data comes from a plugin.

Beside the automatic collection, the admin can manually donate custom points to the user, for example for a special reward. Of course you can use this also for awards, achievements and promotions.


Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Creating threads and gaining additional points from views, replies, votes and ratings to this thread
- Creating thread tags
- Making a thread sticky
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Creating posts
- Views on attachments (needs "Who Downloaded This Attachment?" installed)

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are registered for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Given infractions ("Arm of Law")
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Creating social groups and getting members
- Uploading pictures
- Making friends
- Completing profile

Misc
- Doing calendar entries
- Writing vBulletin Blogs (vBulletin 4 Suite required)
- Publishing content with vBulletin CMS (vBulletin 4 Suite required)
- Manually assigned points

Additionally there is support for 3rd party modifications:
- Point Market System / Items Shop (included)
- Project Tools (plugin)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (plugin)
- DownloadsII v6 (included)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- Abe1 Post Thank You (plugin)
- DBTech Advanced Post Thanks/Like (Lite) (plugin)
- DBTech Advanced @UserTag (plugin)
- Helpful Answers (plugin)
- iTrader (plugin)
- ibProArcade (plugin)
- v3arcade Champions and Submissions (plugin)
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (plugin)
- Advanced Forum Points - set points independent for every forum (plugin)
- Consuming points by downloading attachments ("pay" for attachments) (plugin)
- IWT Time Spent Online (plugin)
- PhotoPost Pro 7 (plugin)
- PhotoPost vBGallery 3 (plugin)
- 8WR Media Library (plugin)
- vBSoccer (plugin)
- vBookie (plugin)
- vBookie Cash (plugin)
- Farcaster's Event Attendance (plugin)
- PhotoPlug (plugin)
- EasyForms (plugin)
- Triple Triad (plugin)
- AWCoding Donation System LITE (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Donation System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Subscription System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Credit Purchase System LITE (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Credit Purchase System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Pirate Poker PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Pirate Poker Platinum (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Product System PRO (shipped within that product)



You have to install these modifications for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.
More addons will be published as soon as they are finished.



/***** Calculation of the activity *****\
The system calculates the activity (week, month and also a custom defined datespan, 60) by counting the actions a user has done. An action can be a post, a new thread, rating, download, etc... The activity bars will be filled during the first weeks. This has changed from earlier versions where just postings, visitor- and group messages have been counted.



/***** 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.
Many settings regarding the behaviour of vBExperience are making it easy to adjust it to your needs. You can select from 10 colors for the progress bars and also choose from around 250 icons.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's. Please keep in mind that out of the box the usergroupid 6 (Administrators) is beeing ignored.



/***** Performance, especially on 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 the word "Experience".

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. If you used vBCredits, vBActivity, uCash and similar systems - there is no need to convert the points.

Q: My conditions don't work correctly on achievements and promotions.
A: Conditions in achievements and promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in count of items.
If you create an achievement for reaching the first 10 Days, you must enter the points needed for this. If you reward 2 points for every day, you have to set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10 days * 2 points = 20 as condition. So you will have to set 20 as the condition.

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



/***** History *****\

vBExperience 4.1.1

Please reinstall ALL plugins you are using from the ZIP\Plugins! Espacially if you get SQL Errors after reinstalling vBExperience.

- Fixed Plugin for 8WR_Media_Library
- Fixed Plugin for Advanced_Forum_Points
- Fixed Plugin for Attachment_Consumes_Points
- Fixed Plugin for EasyForms
- Fixed Plugin for Post_Thanks_Abe1
- Fixed border around boxes
- Fixed not correctly saving award images
- Extended character length for manual award assignment
- Several smaller fixes

vBExperience 4.1.0, 16th December 2011

- Introduced the feature to start the calculation by a defined date. By default all data will be considered for calculation. Please keep in mind that there are some data that cannot be filtered by date, like added friends. You need to re-install all plugins to have them obeying the new calculation limit. This feature has been sponsored by BryanB. Thanks!
- Fixed Discussion Ender, can be now disabled by setting value to 0
- Fixed Arm of Law, can be now disabled by setting value to 0
- Insight: Optimized layout
- Insight: Optimized colours for darker styles
- Achievement "Three Friends" renamed to "Social" (does not affect existing achievement)
- Renamed point descriptions so they can be identified better as point system (f.e. Days since registered -> Points for every day since registration)
- Added: Romanian Translation (thanks to Teascu Dorin)
- Custom Points can now have a category, can be used as entry point for other modifications using vBExperience points, eg. Market/Shop purchases
- Fixed several smaller issues

Changelog for other versions is in history.txt

[OldSchoolDSL]

Originally Posted by onehost

thats good to hear...I have to find better ways to enchance my forum
in order to get more users posting, maybe it will improve activity....
so far it does not seemlike I can get money to post unless money
is some how involved....Its like a busy airport when they know
you are paying, but when the contest is over, or money is not
flowing their way, they all seem to scatter....no more posts...

Can't say its a good idea to be "paying" your community to be a part of it. But that's just my opinion.

What I can say, is this Mod has a lot of 3rd party support... ie... There are other Mods in which develop or include add-ons for this mod, with their word. Also Phalynx who makes this... Puts so much time and effort into this mod & makes a strong point to address many questions and concerns... That I'm often surprised this is free (but very deeply thankful for it).

[onehost]

Originally Posted by OldSchoolDSL

Can't say its a good idea to be "paying" your community to be a part of it. But that's just my opinion.

What I can say, is this Mod has a lot of 3rd party support... ie... There are other Mods in which develop or include add-ons for this mod, with their word. Also Phalynx who makes this... Puts so much time and effort into this mod & makes a strong point to address many questions and concerns... That I'm often surprised this is free (but very deeply thankful for it).

I assure you, starting a new forum, and not offering something in return,
you will clearly have an empty forum, members like to be around
activity, and activity seems to draw them in...no activity, no members,
no members, no member posting, crap runs down hill....a forum will
not grow itself...and people generally do not want to particiate on a new forum.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by cungchuctanxuan

Hi, How come my points are just 1 even though I have posted lots of threads and I set the point award for posting each thread is 2

Are the points still on 1? It seems the cron is not running to collect points. Please check if the vBExperience Cron has run.

Originally Posted by OldSchoolDSL

4.0.4 working flawlessly on 4.1.0 Patch Level 2

I decided when updating my community, I may as well update this too.

The vAcrade3 plug-in finally works on this too (didn't for some reason on the last version)

I look forward to see more development on this project as always.

Thanks for confirmation.

Originally Posted by onehost

I assure you, starting a new forum, and not offering something in return,
you will clearly have an empty forum, members like to be around
activity, and activity seems to draw them in...no activity, no members,
no members, no member posting, crap runs down hill....a forum will
not grow itself...and people generally do not want to particiate on a new forum.

vBExperience is awakening the "collect them all" animal in all of us. User can collect points and is getting rewared with Achievements, level ups, promotions. It collects also data for existing forums. For the beginning you will have to make a start by asking all your friends to post something. You need also a topic that is interesting. For example, just another offtopic forum will not grow as there are too many of them. Unique content is the key.

[RollaJedi]

thats the animal i'm wanting to put in my forum, exactly! we are a star wars collecting community and i want a way they can 'collect' something on the site. i love this mod and i truly am appreciative of such a great mod it has in phalynx!

[onehost]

Originally Posted by Phalynx

Are the points still on 1? It seems the cron is not running to collect points. Please check if the vBExperience Cron has run.


Thanks for confirmation.



vBExperience is awakening the "collect them all" animal in all of us. User can collect points and is getting rewared with Achievements, level ups, promotions. It collects also data for existing forums. For the beginning you will have to make a start by asking all your friends to post something. You need also a topic that is interesting. For example, just another offtopic forum will not grow as there are too many of them. Unique content is the key.

writing unique content is not an issue. But it is rare to find any forum
that is unique that has not already been started, and if that is the case
you are telling people, dont even bother setting up a forum since
there are others already here, and ahead of you....

So your saying:

DP is already here, so why waste time setting up a webmaster forum.
WF is already here, so why waste time setup up a Internet Marketing forum.

Hell, I think I am just going to quit my job, I am never going to
make manager, why should I when that other guy has more expeience and a degree.

I am just going to give up because another forum may have a few years experience over my forum.

why even bother living at this point...

[reddyink]

Hello, I would like to remove the tab which got installed automatically on the navbar from this MOD. Which template I need edit to remove and how.

Many thanks for an excellent MOD.

[Bouncer222]

Hey Phalynx,

I believe I have a pretty nice idea for your mod... as a user of your mod for over a year, I really appreciate it and it helps boost our forum activity BY A LOT!

My suggestion:

Could you make it so that lets say if a user refers someone else they get a point (already done). But if that user refers someone else afterwards, the original referrer gets a point.

Example:
Bob refers John, Bob gets a point.
John refers Adam, Bob and John get a point.

Make it so that maybe as the tree gets further generations (if you get my visual concept), the further the user is away, the less points an original user will get. This would be made so that the original user wouldn't accumulate TOO much points.

Another idea using the same concept, is the option to give them points based on their points, actions etc..

We would have the option to check off what actions a "Tree grower" would receive points for and how much.

What you think? This would make members VERY happy on our boards, because now other people are doing the job of earning points for them, and in return, the forums thrive in activity.

[GPOClan]

Great!!! But why I don't get level up? All my members need 0 points...

[dannycutts]

Hi does this work with 4.1.0 patch 2?

I currently have VBexperience 4 installed but I think its version 4.0.4

If there is an update... how do I do the update?

Thanks :-)

Danny

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by reddyink

Hello, I would like to remove the tab which got installed automatically on the navbar from this MOD. Which template I need edit to remove and how.

Many thanks for an excellent MOD.

You can remote it via settings.

Originally Posted by Bouncer222

Hey Phalynx,

I believe I have a pretty nice idea for your mod... as a user of your mod for over a year, I really appreciate it and it helps boost our forum activity BY A LOT!

My suggestion:

Could you make it so that lets say if a user refers someone else they get a point (already done). But if that user refers someone else afterwards, the original referrer gets a point.

Example:
Bob refers John, Bob gets a point.
John refers Adam, Bob and John get a point.

Make it so that maybe as the tree gets further generations (if you get my visual concept), the further the user is away, the less points an original user will get. This would be made so that the original user wouldn't accumulate TOO much points.

Another idea using the same concept, is the option to give them points based on their points, actions etc..

We would have the option to check off what actions a "Tree grower" would receive points for and how much.

What you think? This would make members VERY happy on our boards, because now other people are doing the job of earning points for them, and in return, the forums thrive in activity.

Such a feature comes with vBExperience 4.1, as there is someone who paid for this. But it's not 100% the same. You get a defined amount, f.e. 5% of the new users points additionally to your own points.

Originally Posted by GPOClan

Great!!! But why I don't get level up? All my members need 0 points...

You need to install a level file, see readme for installation.

Originally Posted by dannycutts

Hi does this work with 4.1.0 patch 2?

I currently have VBexperience 4 installed but I think its version 4.0.4

If there is an update... how do I do the update?

Thanks :-)

Danny

vBExperience 4.0.4 works great with vBulletin 4.1 PL2