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.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by mmllc

Sorry if this has been asked,

but wouldn't it be GREAT if we could write something that made the TOP RESPONSE POST be moved to the first page of the thread under first post? Or some way highlight it more than it already is, because top response could be 30 pages deep, no one will see usually.

Any ideas?

You would have to hard hack (edit scripts) to do this. That's why it isn't included in the mod.

There is a tool to show a link to the top post if you chose to use it.

[mmllc]

Great Ted, Thanks, this is still a great great mod, working splendidly


I did notice a quirk a few minutes ago, it seems the "TOP POSTER" code also shows up in private message postbit as well even though there's no voting going on there. Is there a fix for this or is it something I did? Any way to keep it showing on the Top rated post in the forum but block it from private message pages?

[mmllc]

by top post code I meant

<if condition="$thread[toppost] == $post[postid]">xxxxxxxxxxxxx</if>

Showing up in private messages. Anyway to block it?

[mmllc]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Ok boys & girls. Here's the moment many of you have been waiting for / begging for / hitting me over the head about... collapsed negative posts just like in the vB4 version!

To update just upload the new XML file and check your settings. You'll see all the needed options to hide negative posts.

Thanks to Simon Lloyd for the vb3 test site! Since I only have his test site I'm considering this beta.

More updates to come soon so let me know any issues or suggestions!

I installed 2.0.5, but as far as I can tell the collapse thread option is not there, i downloaded 2.0.1 but do not want to overwrite anything newer and essential. What should I do ?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by mmllc

I installed 2.0.5, but as far as I can tell the collapse thread option is not there, i downloaded 2.0.1 but do not want to overwrite anything newer and essential. What should I do ?

Use the latest uploaded posted here.

[emath]

thanks for the hack is great

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by bposner

Installed this, see nothing.. ?? no errors on install
forum is given the option. I see no link to rate post

Have you modified your postbit template?

[11133]

i got installed post thanks
can someone tell me which one is better,.. this or ajax post thanks hack

i yest wanna to avoid spammed messages like "thanks a lot etc"
and integrate with some other feature,.. min xx helpfull answers/post thanks to can view attachment/links/images

[MagicThemeParks]

11133, they are really two different things. Post thanks is substituting and avoiding those "thanks!" posts that waste time. This one can be used as such but is really meant for "helpful answers". I use this one for a site that asks advice from other members and if posts are helpful to them they give it a thumbs up and mark it as helpful.

Just depends on what you are trying to do on your site

[11133]

yes i get it,.. here i avoid who thanks for the helpfull answer

i will install booth on local and take a look,..both can work for me,.. i yest want if someone help someone to say it (avoint thanks you man thread)

one question,.. if i enable negative rating here,... how its working,.. with thumbup/down sustem