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

[SamirDarji]

As always, thank you for the unreal amount of assistance you have given us with this hack. I feel I can't say it enough times.

Originally Posted by sv1cec

- postbit template. Mine (3.0.3) doesn't have any div there, so I can't be sure. I suggest you experiment.

Interesting. I'm also running 3.0.3. In your template, is your new code inside a div tag? If so, where does the tag start?

Originally Posted by sv1cec

- banned user group not appearing, you are right, I haven't seen that, I'll look it up and post a correction here.

Let me know where to look and I'll also see if isn't just that I messed up somewhere.

Originally Posted by sv1cec

- your last error is a result of not saving the warning options properly. One of the parameters defined there, is the records per page, so if that is not set, the program tries to divide by nothing.

Makes sense

Originally Posted by sv1cec

First of all, try to see if you have the proper tables. Check the following tables by comparing the results of the "describe tablename" command with the columns described in the installation instructions. Second, check to see if the required templates have been added.

Where are these listed? I looked through every .txt file.

I just started parsing through the upgrade_warn.php and looking in phpmyadmin to see about the database tables. That's where the problem seems to be. Looks like it never updated the warning_options table, although it did all the other ones. I'm assuming that everything up to this point probably worked. So now how do I fix it?

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

What was I thinking?????

OK, to fix the issue with the banned users group not appearing in the drop-down menus of the other options, please open your admin_warn.php file and find:

PHP Code:

    if($usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['banned_usergroup_id'] AND $usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['troll_usergroup_id'] AND $usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['restore_groupid'])
{
    $uoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    $tuoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    $restoreoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    } 


Replace that part of code with:

PHP Code:

if($usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['banned_usergroup_id'])
    {
        $uoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    }
    if($usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['troll_usergroup_id'])
    {
        $tuoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    }
    if($usergroup['usergroupid']!=$warn_opts['restore_groupid'])
    {
        $restoreoption.="<option value='{$usergroup['usergroupid']}'>{$usergroup['title']} (ID: {$usergroup['usergroupid']})</option>";
    } 


I'll post a new version in the zip file, in a minute.

Yep, that fixed it.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by beano33

Protected Usergroups isn't working on my installation. I have Use Hierarchical Schema set to no and added 13|18 as protected usergroups, but it's having no effect. Any suggestions? Everything else seems to be working as intended.

When you are saying it does not work, do you mean that the members which have groups 13 and 18 as PRIMARY user group, can still be warned? The hack checks only if someone's primary group is in the protected groups, so if someone is a registered user (group 2) and he also belongs in another group (additional user group), this is not checked.

Let me know, because everything seems to be OK here.

Rgds

[beano33]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

When you are saying it does not work, do you mean that the members which have groups 13 and 18 as PRIMARY user group, can still be warned?
Rgds

Yes, that's the case. They're only used as primary groups.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by beano33

Yes, that's the case. They're only used as primary groups.

I found the problem. When I moved some routines in the functions_warning.php file, I didn't pass along the proper parameters. Have it fixed, but give me a moment to update the zip file.

Then download the zip and upload Warn.php and includes/functions_warning.php files to your server.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for cathing this.

[Revan]

Btw that "saving options properly" issue... Wouldnt it make more sense to put an if() around the page calculation page, saying summit liek if ($options['warn_perpage'] == 0) { $options['warn_perpage'] = 15; }, to avoid these bugs?

[beano33]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

I found the problem. When I moved some routines in the functions_warning.php file, I didn't pass along the proper parameters. Have it fixed, but give me a moment to update the zip file.

Then download the zip and upload Warn.php and includes/functions_warning.php files to your server.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for cathing this.

Thanks! Working fine now.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by SamirDarji

As always, thank you for the unreal amount of assistance you have given us with this hack. I feel I can't say it enough times.

Interesting. I'm also running 3.0.3. In your template, is your new code inside a div tag? If so, where does the tag start?

Let me know where to look and I'll also see if isn't just that I messed up somewhere.

Makes sense

Where are these listed? I looked through every .txt file.

I just started parsing through the upgrade_warn.php and looking in phpmyadmin to see about the database tables. That's where the problem seems to be. Looks like it never updated the warning_options table, although it did all the other ones. I'm assuming that everything up to this point probably worked. So now how do I fix it?

OK, the description of each table is (more or less) shown inside the install_warn.php file, found inside the admincp directory in the upload directory of the zip.

Check them out and let me know where you stand.

Or you may try the uninstaller and start from scratch. It will remove the additional template, tables and phrases, and then you can run install_warn.php from scratch.


Rgds

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by Revan

Btw that "saving options properly" issue... Wouldnt it make more sense to put an if() around the page calculation page, saying summit liek if ($options['warn_perpage'] == 0) { $options['warn_perpage'] = 15; }, to avoid these bugs?

It probably won't happen like it did in my case because I didn't even have the tables. If he would've had the check in there, I might not even have discovered the missing tables, lol.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by Revan

Btw that "saving options properly" issue... Wouldnt it make more sense to put an if() around the page calculation page, saying summit liek if ($options['warn_perpage'] == 0) { $options['warn_perpage'] = 15; }, to avoid these bugs?

Added that in the latest zip. If I start trapping all those stupid errors, the code will get enormous, after all these are in the admins section, an admin should know better, but you can never count on that, can you?