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.

[trotskid]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

You're kidding right? you expected free help on a free mod in the timeframe you wanted?:down:

To post this morning and then post a "forget this..." 8 hours later because someone didn't "snap to it" for you means that i wont help you (and i was when i visited this thread last night!), you really dont deserve it!

Sorry but that really annoyed me!

You right.

My fault . I'm very grateful for this great mod.

[Simon Lloyd]

It's too late for me to help you now as im off out, i'll take a look later and post tomorrow!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by trotskid

No help on this mod? Ok, forget this one in my forum.

If the support on a _free_ mod doesn't meet your needs, by all means don't use it. In fact, I'd suggest not using any of my mods if that's the case. I can't promise a support turn around time and try to be up front about that.

Good luck with your site.

[trotskid]

Originally Posted by Ted S

If the support on a _free_ mod doesn't meet your needs, by all means don't use it. In fact, I'd suggest not using any of my mods if that's the case. I can't promise a support turn around time and try to be up front about that.

Good luck with your site.

We're gladly with your mod. Just needed a little change.

No problem.. Thanks anyway

Edit: Your one poor sport that's for sure - TheLastSuperman

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by trotskid

We're gladly with your mod. Just needed a little change.

No problem.. Thanks anyway

REMOVED

Insulting members of the community, and especially members who help support this mod, is no way to earn help or any other positive attention.

[trotskid]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Insulting members of the community, and especially members who help support this mod, is no way to earn help or any other positive attention.

Don't kidding me. There is no help about my post, not from your nor your "member". So your mod is definitely out in my forum . No working.

Thanks anyway, no problem.

regards

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by trotskid

So your mod is definitely out in my forum

Perfect.

[trotskid]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Perfect.

I acknowledge that I have not had appropriate words, I hope to forget this incident. I apologize, I had other things in mind

[supermak]

Hi, everytime somebody clicks on the like/not like button, this message appears:

Warning: curl_setopt() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in [path]/helpfulanswers.php on line 434

any help?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by supermak

Hi, everytime somebody clicks on the like/not like button, this message appears:

Warning: curl_setopt() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in [path]/helpfulanswers.php on line 434

any help?

For the numerous people who both PM and post to the forum... please don't.

When you do this it means the author has to check their PMs, be sure the same person is asking the same exact question, repost the answer so others reading it know there's no strange bug.

Posting to the mod thread is always the best way to get help and why I don't do PM support anymore.

If you do double post, take the time to go back to the thread and note it so others know the issue is resolved.

So for anyone else asking, the latest version should address this but if not, just turn off the reporting option. Which I thank you for having left on in the first place