Advanced Warning System (AWS)

Advanced Warning System Version 3.5.0

The AWS version for vB 3.5 has been released. You can download it and get support in this thread:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=770032


Advanced Warning System Version 3.4.16 (latest stable release for vB 3.0.x)


LATEST ANNOUNCEMENT

The AWS has its own Premium Forum here at vBulletin.org, so please use that for questions and discussion on this hack.

The Permium Forum is located at :

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=105





This Warning System owes its existence to Zero Tolerance's Warning Hack (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65336). I liked the idea, so I installed Zero's hack in my forums site. However, as in most cases, I was not fully satisfied with the way it worked, so I started customizing it. Other people in the thread above, asked questions, which I had already answered by my customizing work, so I answered, giving away those parts of the code, that I had modified.

In the long run, I almost hijacked the thread and the hack from Zero, so I guess I owe him an apology. However, the mods I did have compiled a new, more complete warning system, with much more functionality. Several members from that thread, asked if this could be released as a new hack, so after discussing it with Zero, here it is.

What it does? Well, it is a Warning System, which means it allows you (the administrative team of your site, in other words the admins, the supermods and the mods), to define offences, which the members of your forum should NOT commit. But as we all know, there are instances where members do not follow the rules. In that case, this warning system, allows you to issue a warning to the member who commited the offence. The warning has some points associated with it, as well as a period over which it is valid. When a member gathers enough points, he is banned from your forums, for a predefined period of time. That's mostly it, but below, you can find a short list of features:

Full warning system with:

- post- and non-post-related warnings
- hierarchical warning schema
- hidden or real warners
- customizable maximum warning points
- automatically bans members who reached the maximum warning points
- customizable ban days
- customizable ban user group and permanent ban user group
- customizable restore user group, where users are restored after they get unbanned
- customizable option for who can see the warning level of the members
- automatically issued warnings for posts which contain censored words
- automatically issued warnings for private messages which contain censored words
- supports incremental banning periods
- supports multiple warnings for the same post
- warned members are notified either by Private Message or e-mail when they are warned and when one of the warnings they have received is either deleted or expired
- maintains historical listings of issued warnings (even if deleted or expired)
- customizable warning types
- each warning type has predefined warning points associated with it
- each warning type has predefined maturity period, after which it is automatically deleted
- reports for admin, mods and members
- cron job included to automatically remove matured warnings
- uses vBulletin's cron job, to automatically unban banned users
- all options are setable in your AdminCP
- user warning points and number of bans viewable in your AdminCP User Manager.
- statistics show warning per type, warnings per warner, bans per user.
- Allows you to warn a user from your AdminCP/User Manager.
- Large "Warn" sign, in posts which have received a warning, for mods, supermods and admins, to easily distinguish those posts.
- Ability to remove user's avatar, signature or usage of the Private Messaging system, depending on the warning points he has collected.
- Supports non-standard admins, supermods and mods user groups.
- Allows you to save a copy of the warning send to the warned user, in a predefined forum.
- Allows you to issue "Alerts" (warnings without warning points, for first-time offenders)
- Allows you to add private or public notes for a user, either post-specific or not. Notes appear in the postbit, above each user's message.
- etc.

Admitedly, this is not an easy hack to install. It requires 20 new templates and modifications to some existing ones too. It requires five new tables and modifications to some others. It requires several new phrases. I've tried to make the installation, as easy as I could, by automating certain tasks in an automatic installer. The installer will add the new templates for you, add the new tables required and change the existing ones, and will add the required new phrases. You will have to manually edit the existing templates and the php files though. I also included an upgrade script, which will upgrade those who are using Zero Tolerance's warning hack (version 1.5) to this one. An uninstaller is also included, which removes what the installer installs.

Please keep in mind, that this is a very difficult hack to install. For this reason, I strongly recommend that you back up your database before starting the installation. I also suggest that you keep copies of each file and template you edit, so that you can always revert to a previous stable condition. Finally, I strongly suggest that you always run the latest release.

The zip file always contains both the instructions and the files required to install the latest version. If you have installed a previous version and want to upgrade to the latest, there is a text file attached, in the zip with upgrade instructions. Follow them.

In this thread, you will also find a more detailed document describing the features of this hack, as well as a document describing its version evolution.

Also keep in mind that the installer, will add the AWS templates only to your default style. If you want to use them in another one, you may try this Zero Tolerance's hack, which copies the templates to other styles you may have.

Another thing, the installation instructions were written when vB was at release 3.0.3, so you may expect to find some differences, with the latest files and templates. As far as I can tell, I haven't faced any such case, but I post this reservation here, since I do not have the time to recheck all the instructions for compliance with the latest vB release. The hack has been installed and is working fine with the vBulletin version shown at the top of this thread.

Finally, if you are using more than one style, the installer will install the templates only in the default one. If you want to use the rest of your styles, here is a hack, that will do this for you.

This hack can also be integrated with Zero Tolerance's vBChat. However, since I am using a heavily-modified version of vBChat, I haven't included instructions, on how to patch the original vBChat files, in the documentation. If you are interested in having AWS issue automatic warnings when one of your user enters a censored word in a vBChat message, or if you want your moderators to be able to warn a user, who misbehaves in vBChat, please post a thread in this forum and I'll help you through.

This is my first officially released hack, so please don't be to harsh with me, if I broke any rules or made any mistakes. The mods have been tested extensively, both by me and two volunteers (thank you gentlemen), but I am only human.

Closing, let me thank Zero Tolerance, who got me started in this, and who owns a big part of the code of this hack. I definnitely couldn't have done it, without his code.

Special Note
For those who upgrade from Zero Tolerance's hack to my AWS, even though I have included a script which will do some of the work automatically, not everything is done by that script. Read the installation instructions carefully. You have to run the upgrade script first and then do several things manually. If you just run the upgrade script and just upload the files, the AWS will not work properly. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to post here.

Also, let me add here, that version 3.3.0 wouldn't have been possible without the contribution of Revan.

And a couple of warnings:

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE LATEST ZIP FILE FROM HERE, BEFORE YOU START INSTALLING THIS HACK. JUST BECAUSE YOU DOWNLOADED IT A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS THE LATEST VERSION. MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE ZIP, JUST BEFORE YOU START INSTALLING THIS HACK.


LATEST VERSION

Version 3.4.16 (released Thursday August 25th, 2005 GMT 18:18)

A couple of bugs fixed in this version. One is related to the Notes feature, and it allowed plain users to see the notes entered, if the "Who can view warning points" setting was set to "All".

Features.txt a new version of this file has been uploaded on April 4th2 005 GMT 09:30, which covers the latest additions to the hack. The original Features.txt file hasn't been updated since the first release of this hack, so it was time for an update.

John

[sv1cec]

Nubian and Samir,

If you have some where warn_options, instead of warn_opts, that means that somewhere along your upgrades you haven't followed the instructions properly. The change to warn_opts was done back in version 2.2, when I moved the query for the options in the global.php file. It now resides in functions_warning.php, but the warn_opts parameter has not been changed, since then. If you check the upgrade instructions there, you will see that it says to replace all warn_options with warn_opts.

Check your member.php file There should be the following line somewhere:

require_once('./includes/functions_warning.php');

From there on, make sure that warn_options is replaced in the file, with warn_opts. That's the proper parameter and that is what should be checked wherever it is checked.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by bigdaddybryce

I am not using the stock template but another one that I found of VB Templates

For whoever is using a different template set than the standard, it is obvious that the installation or the upgrade instructions would not match. You need to compare the standard template with the one you are using and find out the most appropriate place to insert the different code pieces from my hack.

Rgds

[sv1cec]

One more thing, gentlemen, for some reasons I am not receiving e-mail notifications from this forums, whenever you post something. This is the reason I am late at responding some times. The funny thing is that I do receive notes about hacks I've participated in their threads months ago, but not from this one, at least not regularly.

Apologies, and I would appreciate if an admin can look at this problem, I am reporting this post right now, to see what can be done.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by SamirDarji

The template is present, and works when issueing post-related warnings. How does the template get called after the non-post related warning? That's the area I think I need to look into for a problem.

The redirect template is called from the Warn.php file. Go in the file and find the following code:

PHP Code:

$url="member.php?u={$_POST['id']}";
eval('$warn_page .= "' . fetch_template('warn_redirect') . '";');

// @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
// Warn [User] ~ do
// @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
}
//***************************************************************************************


if($_GET['do']=="ViewMyWarnings"){
// @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
// Warn [View Your Own]
// @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
// Navigation
    $navbits= array("Warn.php?$session[sessionurl]&do=ViewMyWarnings" => "Your Warnings");
    $navbits[""]= "Viewing Your Warnings"; 


Right there, at the top, it is where the redirect is called. Make sure this exist in your file.

[SamirDarji]

I originally started with 2.3.1. The only changes I've made since then is the member template cut and paste. For the live board, I'll be starting fresh with the latest version.

The piece of code is there. I'm thinking that during a db query something isn't returning right. I've seen this happen with other hacks as well installed on the test server. I just wanted to make sure that was the case, but it doesn't seem like I'll be able to pinpoint it. I'll be installing the warning system on the live board next week.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by SamirDarji

I originally started with 2.3.1. The only changes I've made since then is the member template cut and paste. For the live board, I'll be starting fresh with the latest version.

The piece of code is there. I'm thinking that during a db query something isn't returning right. I've seen this happen with other hacks as well installed on the test server. I just wanted to make sure that was the case, but it doesn't seem like I'll be able to pinpoint it. I'll be installing the warning system on the live board next week.

If you haven't done every upgrade, exactly as described, it is normal to run into troubles, and this is what's happening to your test environment, because of the queries that some of them are working with warn_opts, others with warn_options etc. Start from scratch in your live site.

Just download the latest zip, the day you start the installation, and work with it.

Don't cut any corners, do everything as it is in the instructions. To the best of my knowledge, they are correct 100%.

Rds

[wez]

1 word........... fantastic!!

closed the forum... applied the installation step by step, took a while - double checked EVERYTHING - opened forum...... and booya! works a treat! fantastic stuff...

Thanks !

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by wez

1 word........... fantastic!!

closed the forum... applied the installation step by step, took a while - double checked EVERYTHING - opened forum...... and booya! works a treat! fantastic stuff...

Thanks !

Most welcome Sir!

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

If you haven't done every upgrade, exactly as described, it is normal to run into troubles, and this is what's happening to your test environment, because of the queries that some of them are working with warn_opts, others with warn_options etc.

That makes sense. In your opinion, do you think everything otherwise is working fine and this is the only issue left?

Originally Posted by sv1cec

Start from scratch in your live site. Just download the latest zip, the day you start the installation, and work with it.

Don't cut any corners, do everything as it is in the instructions. To the best of my knowledge, they are correct 100%.

Will do. My methodolgy for the live site is rigorous compared to the test server. Every template change is documented, every php file revision is documented, and even changes in any options are documented. It's really time consuming, but it works. If I have a problem, I'm able to easily back up and see at what step it started at.

[nubian]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

Nubian and Samir,

If you have some where warn_options, instead of warn_opts, that means that somewhere along your upgrades you haven't followed the instructions properly. The change to warn_opts was done back in version 2.2, when I moved the query for the options in the global.php file. It now resides in functions_warning.php, but the warn_opts parameter has not been changed, since then. If you check the upgrade instructions there, you will see that it says to replace all warn_options with warn_opts.

Check your member.php file There should be the following line somewhere:

require_once('./includes/functions_warning.php');

From there on, make sure that warn_options is replaced in the file, with warn_opts. That's the proper parameter and that is what should be checked wherever it is checked.

i finally got it to work.

there is nothing stating that i had to change all of my warn_options to warn_opts.

now the thing is that i initially started with 2.3.2 and upgraded to the latest insequential order
3.2 to 3.3 to 3.4 to 3.5
the only place from the 2.3.5 "UpgradeToLatestVersion.txt"t is where it starts from versions 2.1 to 2.2
but more enough...it's working now.
thank you for the great support