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New Rep/Warning System, Table bbCode, and more...

Chris

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Chris Grand Master

Chris

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Before reading this, please be aware this topic contains multiple announcements, the following couple of posts detail changes we have made.

New Warning/Reputation System

Over the last few months, the staff, as well as some of the elite members have been discussing the possibility of introducing an improved warning system to the one IPB comes with - all you can do is add warnings and remove warnings, it's that standard. We wanted more features and to be able to give admins and mods more choice on how they deal with problem members. The result is a heavily customised warning and reputation system coded entirely by myself, it's been in place for quite a while but had too many bugs to make it public. The remaining bugs have finally been worked out, and this topic is here to explain everything to you.

First of all is a the renaming. You can call it a warn system or rep system or whatever you want. The warn logs are now shown as "rep logs", as this better describes the nature of them (i.e. showing warnings - bad reputation, and positives - good reputation).

Changes in topic view

You'll have probably noticed that when viewing a topic, you have at the bottom of the bit where your avatar is, a link which reads "View Rep Log". Only admins and mods, as well as yourself can read this. Other members do not have access to it.

If you see a red number next to it, for example, (2), this means you have 2 formal warnings against you. You should check your rep log and see why you have got these, if the moderator warning you did not contact you via PM or email.

Good Reputation, and how to earn it

While it's good to have a positive reputation around any forum in the first place, it's even nicer when it is shown to the whole community in some way, and to know you're appreciated. By helping out a great deal on the forums, you can be awarded with reputation points. Obviously the more points you've got, the more useful you've been to the community, and the more respect you have.

If a member has been given reputation, you'll see it underneath their avatar, for example... Rep: 5

An example of how one might earn reputation points:

Member decides that there isn't a detailed guide on the vehicles of San Andreas. Member decides to start a topic which gives loads of details on each of the vehicles that can be found in the game. He categorises them all into cars, bikes, planes, etc. and he presents the topic well, with effective use of images, tables and colour where needed. Many other members find the topic highly useful, and thank him for his efforts. Moderator sees the topic, and awards member with a reputation point (or more if the topic is insanely good).

NOTE: Only Admins and Super Mods can award reputation points, individual forum moderators do not have this ability. Rep points are hard to earn, you don't just get given them for being a nice member, you also need to provide some highly useful, and helpful topics in addition to that. Good luck, and I hope to see many people attempting to help everyone out!

More Detailed Rep Logs - Explanations of the warnings

Rather than just increasing and decreasing warn level, I've added more relevant options. You may notice things such as "verbal warning" and "formal warning" in your rep logs, below is an explanation of what each one means, and why you may have been given it. They are listed in order of seriousness.

Verbal Warning

This is just a friendly note of warning from a moderator. It does not affect your warning level in any way. It will usually be given out when a moderator thinks you might start getting out of hand, for example, if you've posted off topic a few times, or have shown a slight tendency to spam in places. Please take these into consideration so you don't end up with a more serious warning.

Formal Warning

This is the same as warnings were previous to all the changes. A formal warning increases your warn level (i.e. you'll see it in topic view mentioned above). If you're given one of these it means you're beginning to become a bit of an annoyance to people. You may have been posting off topic a lot, or spamming. You may have have started flaming other members or staff outside of the warzone. The reason given by the moderator should explain why you got it.

Posting Rights Revoked

This is more serious than a formal warning. Like a formal warning it will increase your warn level. Getting one of these means you've ignored previous warnings, or have persistently broken the rules, i.e. you've made a lot of spammy posts and have been annoying other members.

Underneath the reasoning, will be a time period - this is length of time that your posting rights were revoked for. During the time, you will still have access to the forums, but you just won't be able to make any news posts. This allows you to calm down, as well as prevents you from causing more disruption.

Temporary Suspension

Also known as a temp ban. Whatever you want to call it, getting one of these means you're becoming a big problem here, and the mods aren't very happy with your behaviour and attitude. It will increase your warn level obviously. A period of time will be shown beneath the reason, this is the time you're suspended for,. During this time you will have no access to the forums, a message will displayed telling you the date/time you'll be granted access again. It could be hours, it could be days, even weeks, depending on how serious the rule breaking has been.

Permanent Ban

Also known as perma banned, bannage, b&... amongst other things. This basically means we've had enough of your incessant rule breaking and disruptive behaviour. We did our best to fix you, but you just didn't listen. We've now evicted you from the forums, and you're account now lives shamefully in the "Banned" group. This doesn't really require much more explaining, and hopefully you'll never come close to be on the receiving end of a moderators ban stick.

NOTE: Only Admins and Super Mods can permanently ban a member, individual forum moderators do not have this ability.

In all cases of a warning, if you were warned for a particular post, a link ("View Related Post") will show up beneath the reason given by the moderator. Clicking this will take you to the post you were warned for. You should look at it and see why you were warned.

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Chris Grand Master

Chris

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Table BBCode

The ability to create tables to set out your content is something we've introduced through the use of custom BBCode's. Table are an effective way of laying out content, and can make a topic easier to read and separates the information well. For example, you could use them to create a vehicle database topic, with an image to left, and details of it to the right.

They can also be used in your signature to help organise links and things, such as like I'm currently doing, except I'm using it as a background to my sig images.

The BBCode is exactly like standard HTML, but with square brackets, so if you know anything about that then you'll find this easy to do, for those who don't there are some examples below.

The tags:

[ table ] - starts off a table

[ tr ] - starts a new row

[ td ] - inserts a cell

[ th ] - inserts a cell with darker background (used for headings)

[table][tr][th]This is a table[/th][th]with 2 columns[/th][/tr][tr][td]I could add more, but I don't really need to in this example[/td][td]Also, having too many will probably break the pages[/td][/tr][tr][td]You could have a really long list of links here
one
two
three
maybe even four
or more
but don't make the list too long
that would be stupid[/td][td]OK I think you get the idea now, if you're not sure if your tables to work, PM someone who knows how to do them to help you. Also, it helps if you preview your post before actually posting, then you can just check that everything looks how you want it to;)[/td][/tr][/table]

The code above would produce the following table:

This is a table with 2 columns
I could add more, but I don't really need to in this example Also, having too many will probably break the pages
You could have a really long list of links here

one

two

three

maybe even four

or more

but dont make the list too long

that would be stupid

 OK I think you get the idea now,

if you're not sure you can get your tables to work,

PM someone who knows how to do them to help you.

Also, it helps if you preview your post before actually posting,

then you can just check that everything looks how you want it to ;)

It might look complicated at first, but once you're used to using them it's easy ;)

Other Changes

A couple of other little changes have been made which you may have noticed already. One of them is that Pinned topics are now bold, this was needed to make them stand out more, as it appears many people are subconsciously scrolling past them. This means they weren't read too often. Hopefully now they will be, so please, when you're in a forum, check the pinned topics, there might just be something new there that you should read.

And that's about it for now, a couple of font sizes and letter spacing were tweaked on the main page to make things look more normal, and so that tables would work properly. Hope you all like the changes. But one thing, don't go using tables everywhere now, use them when they're needed ;)

Make some helpful, useful topics or something, with a lot of information.

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Gerard Grand Master

Gerard

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Chris I like the new warning system and all the things in it just one question. On 2nd December I bumped an old topic (I was new and didn't know) and have got 1 warning elvel for it now its March I am just wondering when it will come off because I haven't done anything wrong since.

Ps3 Player.

Warnings do not "come off" - they are permanent records of things you've done in the past.

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Red_91 Grand Master

Red_91

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Chris I like the new warning system and all the things in it just one question. On 2nd December I bumped an old topic (I was new and didn't know) and have got 1 warning elvel for it now its March I am just wondering when it will come off because I haven't done anything wrong since.

Ps3 Player.

Warnings do not "come off" - they are permanent records of things you've done in the past.

Thats a bit bad because I haven't done wrong and when I did get the warning I was new here maybe Chris should remove them after about 3 months because then most new members will probably have warnings.

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Gerard Grand Master

Gerard

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That is not how this system works - it is not a level of punishment, it is a permenant record. It doesn't make any physical difference if you have 10 warnings or no warnings. What action to take is entirely the decision of the moderator who warns you.

For example, if you bump a few topics and the moderator can see you have been warned for it before, he may take more serious action. If he can see you have never been warned for it before, he may take less serious action (eg a verbal warning).

If all record of the warnings was deleted, the moderator would have no way of knowing if this person had done anything bad before. If that were how we did things, we would have to unban all the spammers after 3 months just because they haven't done anything bad since. That's silly.

It is true that many members have warnings from when they were new, but all it does is show the next moderator who warns you what you've done wrong. Nobody else can see how many warnings you've had - so it will only matter if you do something wrong in the future.

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Red_91 Grand Master

Red_91

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That is not how this system works - it is not a level of punishment, it is a permenant record. It doesn't make any physical difference if you have 10 warnings or no warnings. What action to take is entirely the decision of the moderator who warns you.

For example, if you bump a few topics and the moderator can see you have been warned for it before, he may take more serious action. If he can see you have never been warned for it before, he may take less serious action (eg a verbal warning).

If all record of the warnings was deleted, the moderator would have no way of knowing if this person had done anything bad before. If that were how we did things, we would have to unban all the spammers after 3 months just because they haven't done anything bad since. That's silly.

It is true that many members have warnings from when they were new, but all it does is show the next moderator who warns you what you've done wrong. Nobody else can see how many warnings you've had - so it will only matter if you do something wrong in the future.

I see where you are coming from so I will not complain anymore ;)

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Jared Veteran

Jared

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Looking excellent, it was a good time for release and hopefully this will improve the behavior and activity of some members.

I also like the table code, I always missed it from IPB 1.3.

emoticon27cb8.gif

Table code has never existed in IPB ;). Only through add-ons.

Anyway, great to see the table code working 100% now, looks awesome. Nice job Chris.

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MrLlamaLlama Grand Master

MrLlamaLlama

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Try to make whatever it is that you're trying to type legible please, not all of us live in text language world... ;) Also, shoulda posted that in the 'introduce yourself' topic, not in one that has nothing to do with ' fun on the weekedn--eh connor lol?' whatever that is. Also, use pm's to privately contact another member...

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