Miscellaneous Hacks - Discourage Report Abuse

Overview:

This product is designed to discourage abuse of the post/PM reporting system by alerting users (via the "Report Post" icon's tooltip) if they have already reported a post/PM and why they reported it. Each report reason is displayed on a separate line within the tooltip.

You may choose to allow users to report posts/PMs multiple times, or you can restrict multiple reporting to moderators and administrators only. Users who can only report the posts/PMs of others one time will find that the link to the report form for a post is void once they have reported that post. All users (unless restricted by userid as described below) will be able to report their own posts multiple times.

You may restrict certain "problem users" from reporting posts that have already been reported by them or anyone else or from reporting altogether. You may also choose to disable post reporting in selected forums, and to choose whether moderators/administrators are exempt from this restriction.

Updates:

Version 1.1:

• Product can no longer be circumvented by manually calling the report script.
• If the report thread has been given the [SOLVED] prefix (standard prefixid), then users who have reported the post are advised of this.

Version 1.2:

• "Report Post" icon is red for posts the user has already reported.
• Those who are not allowed to report the post again will see an alert if they click the icon, and those who are allowed are also alerted, but can proceed by clicking the "Ok" button, or return to the thread by clicking the "Cancel" button. Both alerts display the information shown in the "Report Post" icon's tooltip.

Version 1.3:

• Bug fix: previously all users who posted in the report thread were told they had reported the post. Now only those who actually reported the post are told they have reported it.

Version 1.4:

• Allows prefixid(s) used to mark report threads as resolved to be defined in the product settings.

Version 1.5:

• Will now automatically check for the prefixid defined by my newly released "Report Thread Prefix Management" product if that is installed and active.

Version 1.6:

• All moderators will see a "report thread" icon which serves as a link to the report thread. The status of the report thread is shown in the icon's tooltip.

Version 1.7:

• You may now restrict users by usergroup to a certain number of reports per day. Upon installing or upgrading to this version, a new table is created in your database that serves as a log for reports made by users in the restricted group(s). This table is pruned daily to remove rows that are more than 24 hours old.

Version 1.7.1:

• Check for user reporting eligibility done at thread level rather than post level for efficiency.

Version 1.8:

• You may now choose to turn off post reporting altogether for selected forums.
• You have the option whether to exempt moderators/administrators from this restriction.
• Removed the need to make a manual template edit to your postbit template(s).

Version 2.0:

• Several bug fixes.

Version 2.1:

• Added support for the reporting of PMs.
• Individual user restrictions are done by username rather than userid.
• All messages to user now fully phrased.

Backup/Warning:

This product alters your database, however it is always good practice to make regular backups and you should make a backup before installing ANY new mod.

As always, products are USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I will provide support and do my best to help but no absolute guarantee is offered.

To Install:

Download and extract the attached .zip file.

Upload the contents of the "upload" folder to your forum's root directory. If you store your button icons in a different location than "images/buttons", then upload the two image files to that folder instead.

Then follow:

AdminCP ► Plugins & Products ► Manage Products ► Add/Import Product

Click on "Choose File" and browse to the product xml file that was packaged in the .zip file.

Click "Import"

If you have installed versions prior to v1.8 and have edited your postbit (either "postbit" or "postbit_legacy" depending on which you use) then please undo that edit by finding the code:

					<vb:if condition="$show['reportlink']">
						&nbsp;
						<vb:if condition="$reported">
							<a class="reported" href="{vb:raw post.reportlink}" rel="nofollow" title="{vb:raw title}" onclick="<vb:if condition="!$report_again">alert(this.title); return false<vb:else />if (!confirm(this.title)){return false;}</vb:if>">
								&nbsp;
							</a>
						<vb:else />
							<a class="report" href="{vb:raw post.reportlink}" rel="nofollow" title="{vb:rawphrase report_bad_post}">
								<!-- <img src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_button}/report-40b.png" alt="{vb:rawphrase report_bad_post}" /> -->
								&nbsp;
							</a>
						</vb:if>
						&nbsp;
					</vb:if>

And restoring it to the original code:

					<vb:if condition="$show['reportlink']">
						&nbsp;<a class="report" href="{vb:raw post.reportlink}" rel="nofollow" title="{vb:rawphrase report_bad_post}"><!-- <img src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_button}/report-40b.png" alt="{vb:rawphrase report_bad_post}" /> -->&nbsp;</a> &nbsp;
					</vb:if>

with:

You MUST set your settings to enable the mod. Each setting has an explanation of its use.



Support for this product can be found here:

• MHB - Discourage Report Abuse
• TAZ - Discourage Report Abuse

[final kaoss]

How about a limit on how much they can report per day or week. Also, I'd like to see a function that can detect on if any action was taken on the reported post. Lets say if no action was taken in 2 weeks, that users reporting is limited further.

[MarkFL]

I actually a few minutes ago added a check to see if the report thread has had the [SOLVED] prefix added, and this information is then displayed to all users who have reported the post to let them know the reporting of that post has been marked as resolved by the staff. I have not made this ready for release yet as I want to give the option in the settings to choose the prefixid that is used to mark threads as resolved.

Limiting users to a certain number of reports per unit of time would be trickier, but is something I will consider.

[final kaoss]

Also, I'd like to see a feature from hackforums added as well if its not too difficult. (it's a mybb mod found here http://mods.mybb.com/view/report-once)

If a post has been reported, do not allow other members to report it again.

I've seen this mod by BoP but I'm sure it can be abused by clever members who paste the report url + showpost # into a new window.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=268799

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by final kaoss

Also, I'd like to see a feature from hackforums added as well if its not too difficult. (it's a mybb mod found here http://mods.mybb.com/view/report-once)

If a post has been reported, do not allow other members to report it again.

I've seen this mod by BoP but I'm sure it can be abused by clever members who paste the report url + showpost # into a new window.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=268799

Initially I suggested at the forum I help administrate that we install Joe's add-on, but there were objections to killing the reporting feature for everyone, and so that's why I developed this add-on as an alternative.

With my product, you do have the option to kill post reporting for certain members, either for posts that have been reported before or you can kill reporting for members entirely, so that they can't report posts at all.

But, you are right that this can be circumvented by pasting the correct URL into their browsers. I will address this with another plugin for the next product update with the "no permission" page.

I have a couple of other improvements planned as well, so look for the next update soon. :up:

[MarkFL]

I went ahead and updated the product so that it cannot be circumvented by manually calling the report script. If a user does not have permission to report a post for any reason, then they are now shown the "no permission" page if they attempt to call the report script for that post.

The other updates I have planned will take much more time, and so I wanted to go ahead and implement this functionality now.

[MarkFL]

Update: version 1.2

• "Report Post" icon is red for posts the user has already reported.
• Those who are not allowed to report the post again will see an alert if they click the icon, and those who are allowed are also alerted, but can proceed by clicking the "Ok" button, or return to the thread by clicking the "Cancel" button. Both alerts display the information shown in the "Report Post" icon's tooltip.

[MarkFL]

Update: version 1.3

• Bug fix: previously all users who posted in the report thread were told they had reported the post. Now only those who actually reported the post are told they have reported it.

[MarkFL]

Update: version 1.4

• Allows prefixid(s) used to mark report threads as resolved to be defined in the product settings.

[MarkFL]

Update: version 1.5

• Will now automatically check for the prefixid defined by my newly released "Report Thread Prefix Management" product if that is installed and active.