This article and its associated code was updated on March 19, 2009

Version: 1.6.0 beta
vB Version: 3.7/3.8
Install Time: Less than 5 minutes including customizing.
Developer: Ted Sindzinski - http://www.moderninsider.com
Support: Visit the official support thread.

This addon provides a simple and fairly anonymous feature to let users rate posts from other members in select parts of your vBulletin forum community. By providing feedback on posts members can help identify the best and worst posts in a thread allowing future visitors to easily hone in on the best information. Rankings now work with or without Ajax support.

This addon is built to be flexible and offers several customization options including:

• Helpful Yes/No or Ten Point rating scale options.
• 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.
• Integration with the reputation system based on post ratings.
• Integration with a user's profile to display post rating history.
• Template driven display that can easily be customized to your forum.

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 as a service to the vBulletin community and also to further research of forum user's behaviors and actions.

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, 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 (see step 4) we ask that you consider leaving it in place to help this research effort and insure the continued support of the addon.

Installation Instructions:

Step 1) Add the attached product plugin. (Required)

From your Admin Control Panel go to Plugin System --> Manage products --> Add/Import product. This will add a database table, multiple plugins, templates, phrases and other elements associated with the addon.

Step 2) Upload the files following the directory structure in the zip archive. (Required)

Step 3) Enable the system in any of your forums by visiting the forum options and scrolling to the end of the page.

Alternatively you can update multiple forums through the Bulk Forum Enabler located in the Helpful Answers Tab.(Required)

Step 4) Configuration options (Optional)

This addon is designed to be flexible and is highly customizable. You will find a range of options for configuring who may use the system and how. Just look for the Helpful Answers category in your vBulletin Admin Control Panel under the Settings Tab.

To edit the appearance of the Helpful Answers bar or any of the text in it simply edit the template helpful_answers.

Step 5) Review for abuse by visiting the Rating History & Editing link within the Helpful Answers Tab of your vBulletin Control Panel. (Optional)

Step 6)  In the event you switch to or from the top ten voting scale you must rest your votes with the following queries. Failure to do so will make for some very odd ratings.

UPDATE post SET goodrank = '', totalrank = '';
DELETE FROM helpfulanswer;