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

[bold]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

You are right, I forgot to add the instructions for that, I just updated the file.

Tnx

you are doing a good job with this hack.

[mcyates]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

I just copied this below, from the installation file. I am sure I have it right there.

PHP Code:

$install[]="INSERT INTO `".TABLE_PREFIX."warning_options` values ('1','Yes', 'Yes','No', '','0','7','10','8','6', '6','8','0','Yes','3','All','Yes','Yes','No','Yes','Yes','15')"; 


Try this!

It worked!!

Thanks, what did you change?

[mcyates]

I just need to add the phrases now as its saying there are duplicates but i'm missing some?

Is there any SQL query i can run which will drop the phrase if it exists and adds them all. The database is fine now, its just the phrases. After the prases are added I can do the file changes.

Thanks in advance, fantastic support.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by mcyates

I just need to add the phrases now as its saying there are duplicates but i'm missing some?

Is there any SQL query i can run which will drop the phrase if it exists and adds them all. The database is fine now, its just the phrases. After the prases are added I can do the file changes.

Thanks in advance, fantastic support.

Try running the following query in your system:

PHP Code:

select * from phrase where varname>='warning' and varname<'we' 


This will show you the phrases which start with 'warning'. All of these are connected to the warning system, so if you do not see anyone that is not related to a warning, then you may execute the following query to remove whichever is left:

PHP Code:

delete from phrase where where varname>='warning' and varname<'we' 


Please make sure that there are no other phrases in the list produced by the first query, except those related to a warning, if there are, then do not run the second one, or else you will delete them.

Rgds

[mcyates]

works thanks!!!

I'll get onto changing the files now. Thank You very much.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by mcyates

works thanks!!!

I'll get onto changing the files now. Thank You very much.

Most welcome!

[mcyates]

Just query about the atomatic arwings when people post words which are in the censored list. You say you can't prove they said what they said as it replaces the words with **** or whatever symbol you use.

Could you just not make another field (or text box) which the automatic warnings run from? Instead of using the words listed in the censored list, have a warning list and when someone types in a word which is in the warning list, they get warned and the words they typed are still shown as they are not censored.

ALSO you could have (if you want) 3 different boxes for the sevearily of the word.

For examply,

Very Very naughty words: (type words in the box, if uses types in one of the words he gets 5 warning points)

Naughty words: (type words in the box, if uses types in one of the not so nautghy words he only gets 2 points)

Not so naughty: like prick, twat (they will get 1 warning point)
Just a suggestion.

[mcyates]

Also could you add something like this so the public can view the banned members with a ling to the post they got the ban for and when the ban expires:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=70293

Or will this already work in parralel with this hack?

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by mcyates

Just query about the atomatic arwings when people post words which are in the censored list. You say you can't prove they said what they said as it replaces the words with **** or whatever symbol you use.

Could you just not make another field (or text box) which the automatic warnings run from? Instead of using the words listed in the censored list, have a warning list and when someone types in a word which is in the warning list, they get warned and the words they typed are still shown as they are not censored.

ALSO you could have (if you want) 3 different boxes for the sevearily of the word.

For examply,

Very Very naughty words: (type words in the box, if uses types in one of the words he gets 5 warning points)

Naughty words: (type words in the box, if uses types in one of the not so nautghy words he only gets 2 points)

Not so naughty: like prick, twat (they will get 1 warning point)
Just a suggestion.

All these could be done, but with lot's of coding. At the moment, I am just trapping the censored words, by just comparing the messages, before and after they are parsed by the vB's routine. If they are different, then the user typed bad words, so I issue the warning. If I were to code everything from the beginning, it would take me months (or who knows, weeks? days? hours?).

We'll see, you never know.

But what I wrote before, that I do not know what the user wrote, is not true. If you activate the Automatic PM Warning option, you will see that it adds a report to your AdminCP, in which you can see the original text, as it was typed before being censored. I do not do the same in the simple posts, because it is obvious that whatever got replaced by **** was a bad word. The PM goes from one user to another, the rest of us, do not see it.

Rgds

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by mcyates

Also could you add something like this so the public can view the banned members with a ling to the post they got the ban for and when the ban expires:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=70293

Or will this already work in parralel with this hack?

You are obviously trying to make me come up with version 3.0???

That's a nice hack, but I agree, it should work with the original userban table, there is no reason to have another one. If you want to store details, such the reason for the ban or the URL that got that person banned, it can be done with extra columns in the original table. Also, it will not work with AWS, because AWS is using the userban table and I do not plan to alter it to use another one (redundancy, I hate it).

This is an interesting idea. Maybe next week. The weekend I am too busy taking care of the twins. At the moment, one of them is sitting in my lap (the other one is still asleep), playing with the Sun's keyboard, which has exceeded its buffer and is beeping every time he presses a key. He really enjoys it!! When they are both awake, I have to go!!! LoL

Rgds
---------
John