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

[SamirDarji]

Hmm...bans and warnings on a per forum basis. I wonder how hard this would be to implement?

[thinking out loud]
I guess there would be warnings that would have to be implemented on a per forum basis. And then bans also on a per forum basis. But since banning from an individual forum isn't part of vb's original design, all of that would have to be created. Hmmm...definitely not a quick bit of coding.
[/thinking out loud]

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by Shack Networks

Oh you are a one man wonder m8 lol

This is spot on what I was thinking of..

Thanks and I look forward to testing and playing with it

H

Regarding the automatic ban, what I've done so far, is to compare the original text written by the poster, with the text returned by the censor routine. If they are not the same, then we have censorship, which means the poster used bad words.

This I can trap and return it to the newreply.php file, I tested it yesterday. I get all the required info, userid, post id, etc. Now, I have to figure out (a) where to put the warning code so that it is used for either a new reply or a new thread or whatever and (b) how to code it, so that it does warn properly. Several issues have to be resolved, for example, there should be a specific warning type, which you should create and which will be known to the program (that's an issue, what if the program expects to find warning 999 and you have created 888?) etc.

As for the warning and banning per forum, that can be quite a bit of work, I do not see it coming unless vB changes some things in the code.

Rgds

[ChrisLM2001]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

4. For ChrisLM2001, at the moment, the banned member is restored to his previous usergroup when he is unbanned. I can add a Warning Options, in which you could specify the user group in which the member is returned into. Would that help?

WOW! Now this is support!

That will be perfect. Sometimes when members return they still may need to be monitored for a while, so it'll be nice to automatically send former banned members to a watch usergroup. That way the Admin can choose later to reintroduce them to the community, when s/he's sure the member has cooled off (especially after a fight on the forums and there's some ire still left).

Chris

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by ChrisLM2001

WOW! Now this is support!

That will be perfect. Sometimes when members return they still may need to be monitored for a while, so it'll be nice to automatically send former banned members to a watch usergroup. That way the Admin can choose later to reintroduce them to the community, when s/he's sure the member has cooled off (especially after a fight on the forums and there's some ire still left).

Chris

Chirs, what do you mean "That will be perfect"? I have already implemented this, in version 1.3

Unfortunatelly, you would have to be the one to test this feature out. Download and install and let me know how it works. Remember to go to the Warning Options and define the "restore" group.

Please test it out, or else you will have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for me to test it.

Rgds

[ChrisLM2001]

Just downloaded it again and will applying it in a moment. Will let you know how it turns out.

Chris

[ChrisLM2001]

Installed it and except for an error installing the phrases (needed to manually add the table prefix) it seems to be working. Haven't tested to see if it'll warn/ban anyone yet...lol.

Have one question: what is the warning maturity level? The other fields are explainable, but that one I don't know.

All in all it's a nice hack, with a lot of options (install it!!).

Chris

[mcyates]

the warning maturity level is the lenght of time the warning stays "active" for the user. If you set this to 9 then the warning will go away after 9 days.

Hope that helps

[mcyates]

one questions for you sv1cec, is it possible to include the name of the person banning the member to be included in the email and / or the pm

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by mcyates

one questions for you sv1cec, is it possible to include the name of the person banning the member to be included in the email and / or the pm

If you do not use the Hidden Warner feature, then the name of the moderator/admin/supermod is listed both in the PM and e-mail, as well as in the reports. The hidden warner is used by those admins, who do not want to reveal to the end-members, who the warner was.

Just set the Hidden Warner value to 0 and the real warn will .... warn!

Rgds

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by ChrisLM2001

Installed it and except for an error installing the phrases (needed to manually add the table prefix) it seems to be working. Haven't tested to see if it'll warn/ban anyone yet...lol.

Have one question: what is the warning maturity level? The other fields are explainable, but that one I don't know.

All in all it's a nice hack, with a lot of options (install it!!).

Chris

The maturity is the number of days the points of a warning will afffect the warned member's account. At the end of the maturity period, the cron job automatically removes those points from the member's account.

Rgds