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.

[designBox]

Originally Posted by Ted S

If you disable the plugin and it still shows the block there is something else in your system using the table records and you have a mod conflict.

Sorry, my mistake.
When I disable the plugin, all boxes are removed as well as all functions.
When I said: "Nothing happens", I was meaning "Nothing BAD happens".

I tried today to uninstall the plugin. Problemless.
However, reinstalling it deleted all logs and customizations.
I saw the following message after installation:

Updating to 2.0...
Updating user records to reflect votes. This will take a minute...
Done with 2.0Updating table...
Updating ALL post records. This will take a minute...

Done.Starting core install
Done with base install

Hopefully, I did a backup of my database previously and was able to restore everything.

Any idea?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by designBox

Any idea?

I'm not sure what the issue is?

When you remove a plugin it removes it completely...

[designBox]

Originally Posted by Ted S

When you remove a plugin it removes it completely...

At least, it doesn't appear anymore on the profile page as well as in the admincp.

[designBox]

Could it be caused by a table misconfiguration.
I mean I remember being on 1.9.6 and upgraded to 2.0.6.
What if the tables haven't been updated during the upgrade?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by designBox

Could it be caused by a table misconfiguration.
I mean I remember being on 1.9.6 and upgraded to 2.0.6.
What if the tables haven't been updated during the upgrade?

Uninstalling the mod removes the tables. A new install will create them all over again using the latest setup.

[jl255]

i guess we won't be seeing the possibility of inserting the number of positive/negative votes a user has on their postbit anytime soon?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by jl255

i guess we won't be seeing the possibility of inserting the number of positive/negative votes a user has on their postbit anytime soon?

Given the way the mod stores data it's not an ideal query.

The solution is to start updating the user table with counts... which fields would you want?

- overall # of votes theyve given
- # of negative votes theyve given
- # of positive votes theyve given
- overall # of votes theyve recieved
etc...

[jl255]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Given the way the mod stores data it's not an ideal query.

The solution is to start updating the user table with counts... which fields would you want?

- overall # of votes theyve given
- # of negative votes theyve given
- # of positive votes theyve given
- overall # of votes theyve recieved
etc...

actually those 4 you mentioned are exactly just what i need.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by jl255

actually those 4 you mentioned are exactly just what i need.

I'll let other users chime in on this for a while as each field requires more overhead [per vote and in storage] as well as cluttering up the user table which is a already being accessed all the stinking time.

Basically I need to see a lot of interest behind each field as the changes, used or not, will impact everyone with the mod.

[jl255]

Originally Posted by Ted S

I'll let other users chime in on this for a while as each field requires more overhead [per vote and in storage] as well as cluttering up the user table which is a already being accessed all the stinking time.

Basically I need to see a lot of interest behind each field as the changes, used or not, will impact everyone with the mod.

yup understood. but just like the 'thank you' hack, which already has this, this is one key feature missing from this mod.

the problem now is members are not so keen on giving credit to others since no one even knows much abt this feature as it is hardly seen apart from the thumbs and down on the posts. having the number of thumbs up/down given to you shown clearly under your avatar, will surely make members much more interested to earn more thumbs up and to give to others as well, since everyone can see their counts anywhere they post.