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 siriuxs

I can't find a solution to my problem in your file

Have you removed the variable $helpful_answers from your template?

And now I have install a new version 1.5.2 and all forum visualized the plugin... But I have esclude some section, but the plugin compare also in this forums... why?

Check the forums to be sure the feature is disabled for them. If not you can individually disable it or disable in groups with the bulk tool.

[siriuxs]

But in wich template I can find the variable $helpful_answers? SHOWTHREAD? SHOWPOST? POSTBIT ??? Please help me... and excuse me for my bad english... P.S. I utilize the children template...

Check the forums to be sure the feature is disabled for them. If not you can individually disable it or disable in groups with the bulk tool.

I write the ID of section that I want disable the plugin in the field Change In ALL Forums EXCECPT (i.e. 1,4,6,10) but when I click on Do Bulk Changes, the page reloaded and the field return blank...

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by siriuxs

But in wich template I can find the variable $helpful_answers? SHOWTHREAD? SHOWPOST? POSTBIT ??? Please help me... and excuse me for my bad english... P.S. I utilize the children template...

postbit or postbit_legacy depending on which you use.

I write the ID of section that I want disable the plugin in the field Change In ALL Forums EXCECPT (i.e. 1,4,6,10) but when I click on Do Bulk Changes, the page reloaded and the field return blank...

Strange. The feature has been reported as working for others but if it's not working for you I would suggest changing it in all and then manually updating those 4 forums (edit them and look for the option at the end of the page to enable or disable).

[siriuxs]

Originally Posted by Ted S

postbit or postbit_legacy depending on which you use.



Strange. The feature has been reported as working for others but if it's not working for you I would suggest changing it in all and then manually updating those 4 forums (edit them and look for the option at the end of the page to enable or disable).

The Variable $helpful_answers there isn't in postbit and in postbit_legacy :S

[jGas]

i think that my problem is the same as siriuxs.
i've upgraded to 3.8.1 but the problem is still there.. with the manual template placement the mod does not work..

here is my post in the 3.7 thread:

Originally Posted by jGas

i place the variable after <!-- / controls --> (inside the postbit_legacy!)

i have to do the manual placement because i have also the post thank you hack, and in the image you can see what happens if they work together with the automatic placement:


(grazie = thanks)

alternatively, is there a way to move the automatic placement AFTER the thank you button?

[vbuser99]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Questions are good... Here we go!


In the Helpful Answers Settings (Allow Negative Responses --> No)



In the Helpful Answers Settings (10 Point Rankings --> Yes). Of course if this is on, disabling negative ratings will have no impact.



Strange. Are you sure you're using a user id to ban someone and not a username?



That's not a part of this addon....

Ted, I am so sorry, my mistake I have been looking to a previously disabled addon's (Post Thank You Hack) settings page. Your last answer made me look if I was on a wrong page and yet I was.

Great mod! and everthing is working as expected.
Thanks.

[vbuser99]

Ted, how can I display total or good ranks on postbit to display statistics about posters helpful answer performance?

I have tried following variables but they only display "1" if there is a rating in particular post.
If there is no voting on a post nothing is displayed.

$post[totalrank] - The total number of ratings
$post[goodrank] - The number of good ratings

Thanks.

[Ted S]

Are you using ten point ratings or just the yes/ no?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by siriuxs

The Variable $helpful_answers there isn't in postbit and in postbit_legacy :S

Please try the attached version of the plugin and let me know if that solves your issue.

[siriuxs]

When I import it I have this error: Error XML : Empty document in line 1