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.

[azn_romeo_4u]

I think I found another bug. Or not.

I set up reputation to allow users to rep 2 times per 24 hours. For helpful answers I set it to rep 5 times per day. However If I use helpful answers 5 times I can't use the rep system.

Also if I use helpful answers on a post, I can no longer use the rep button. It just says you already rep this post.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by azn_romeo_4u

I think I found another bug. Or not.

I set up reputation to allow users to rep 2 times per 24 hours. For helpful answers I set it to rep 5 times per day. However If I use helpful answers 5 times I can't use the rep system.

Also if I use helpful answers on a post, I can no longer use the rep button. It just says you already rep this post.

Why would you expect to be able to do both? If you passed the 2 a day limit with 5 HA posts you'd be locked out.

[azn_romeo_4u]

I expect to do both as well as some of my forum members because they asked me the same question. Why does HA need to lock out the rep system if it has a lower vote limit?

So you're basically telling them to either use the rep or HA. Meaning pretty much one isn't really needed.

So if I HA twice, I can't use rep at all either. Even though I didn't use rep all day. Get what I'm saying? HA shouldn't have an effect on the 24hr period of the rep especially if you set rep only allowed less than HA.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by azn_romeo_4u

I expect to do both as well as some of my forum members because they asked me the same question. Why does HA need to lock out the rep system if it has a lower vote limit?

So you're basically telling them to either use the rep or HA. Meaning pretty much one isn't really needed.

So if I HA twice, I can't use rep at all either. Even though I didn't use rep all day. Get what I'm saying? HA shouldn't have an effect on the 24hr period of the rep especially if you set rep only allowed less than HA.

You don't have to use HA with rep but if you want to use it with rep it will follow the rep settings. You can change this easily in the plugin file but the mod is set to follow the rules you have, not go around them.

[ukyp]

I really like this mod, but because my forum is a debating forum I want to change the text at the bottom of each post from

'Did you find this post helpful?'

To

'Agree with this post?'

Any ideas how I can change the text? Simple explanation please - not very computer literate!!

[Ted S]

Just search your vbulletin phrases for the text you want to change and change it.

[rsuplido]

Thanks for this add-on!

Is there a way to make it more minimalistic and just show the following if you haven't rated the post (note the 'Rate:' there). The <thumbs up> and <thumbs down> icons are then 'clickable':

Rate: <thumbs up> 10 <thumbs down> 20

when user clicks say the <thumbs up>, ajax removes 'Rate:' and flashes the "<thumbs up> 10" (or just the "10") and replaces it to "11" and both icons are not 'clickable' anymore as so:

<thumbs up> 11 <thumbs down> 20

Doable?

[rsuplido]

Another suggestion, how about an option to automatically collapse a post (can be expanded manually) if it reaches say a certain number of bad votes?

Thanks.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by rsuplido

Thanks for this add-on!

Is there a way to make it more minimalistic and just show the following if you haven't rated the post (note the 'Rate:' there). The <thumbs up> and <thumbs down> icons are then 'clickable':

Rate: <thumbs up> 10 <thumbs down> 20

when user clicks say the <thumbs up>, ajax removes 'Rate:' and flashes the "<thumbs up> 10" (or just the "10") and replaces it to "11" and both icons are not 'clickable' anymore as so:

<thumbs up> 11 <thumbs down> 20

Doable?

Sure, just edit the template helpful_answers or helpful_answers_roll to change the voting behavoir as you see fit.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by rsuplido

Another suggestion, how about an option to automatically collapse a post (can be expanded manually) if it reaches say a certain number of bad votes?

Thanks.

This is something I will look at for a future update. Thanks for the suggestion!