Minor Update vBActivity Manual (3.0.0)
- Thread starter Mokonzi
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Mokonzi
Former Developer
BBCode version of the manual for the End-User section:
Using vBActivity
“Welcome to vBActivity!” So read the first words most of you will have come across when reaching the page from the navbar tab “Activity”. What are vBActivity and the Activity system all about?
{{vbactivitynavbar.png}}
All forums suffer a similar fate, that of inactivity. We mean by that each forum reaches a point where there are far more inactive users, than active ones. However, encouraging people to be active isn’t the easiest thing to do, as being active isn’t just about a post count, or even a reputation level. In most modern forums (and especially vBulletin) there are many different ways that a person can be active (such as Social Discussions, Blogs, Visitor Messages), and yet there is no way of allowing a user to reflect that.
vBActivity is designed to counter this problem, encourage greater activity on forums, and providing goals to reach for. Let us explain how things work.
{{vbactivityhome.png}}
The Home page of vBActivity (/vbactivity.php) (we’ll call it vBAA for short from now on) provides a sidebar that has several links to various features of vBAA. Some or all of these features will be available dependent on the settings made by your forum administrators.
Before we review the different areas in depth, let us explain what the various terms mean that we will use about the Activity system.
Achievements
All users can work hard to achieve certain criteria in many areas of the website. So for example, there may be five achievements relating to posts, one when you reach 50 posts, another at 100, 250, 500, and 1000 posts. As you achieve those goals you will gain an Achievement ‘badge’ (usually displayed along with your posts, but more details on where they are displayed in full later on). Most badges have a picture associated with them that help visualize that achievement. Any user who meets the criteria for an achievement will receive it.
{{vbactivityachievements.png}}
Criteria for Achievements (and indeed many other aspects of vBAA) can include posts, threads, visitor messages, blogs, blog replies, length of registration, referrals, friends, shouts (when vBShout is installed), mentions received and mentions given (when User Tagging is installed), thread ratings, reputation, polls, poll voting, etc. The list is extensive, and it would be best to investigate personally what is available on the site, perhaps asking one of the moderators or administrators. In essence, most things you can do on the site can be logged, and if setup by the administrators, can count towards achievements.
Trophies
The highest scorer in each tracked criteria gains a ‘trophy’ as being the best (or worse depending on the context, such as with infractions) and holds that trophy while ever they are the leader. This trophy often shows up next to the username of the person who holds it, for example next to their posts.
Trophies allow for a friendly competition to excel in one or more areas of the site, encouraging the use of quieter areas of a forum, such as blogging and social groups. This in turn establishes the activity of the site further.
Awards
It is also possible for users to be handed an ‘award’ that may or may not be directly related to vBAA on the site. Awards can be given to those who win or who are runner-up in Activity Contests (more on these below) or can be Requested or Nominated by users. Requesting an award can be done by you, or you can nominate someone else for a reward you feel they should have. It may not be always possible to request or nominate awards, depending on the setup on your forum.
Awards might be something like ‘User of the Month’ or ‘Legendary Moderator’. The awards that are available on your forum will depend on your forum’s setup by your admin. You may want to suggest creating awards if they aren’t available currently.
Activity Points
Activity Points are collected by users for various things they do on the forum, some are obvious such as starting threads, posting replies, blog entries, etc. Others will also include tagging threads, using polls, creating polls, and many more. What point values these have will depend on the setup of your forum.
Some Activities will create a negative value, so be careful not to end up receiving them. It may also be that the site has a period of time where some actions give you more points than at other times. The Administrators and Moderators will no doubt give you heads up information on this before that is put into place.
Activity Levels
As the Activity Points grow for a user, their ‘level’ of Activity increases. The Levels are automatically created by the software dependent on the average Activity across the forum. This is a quick way of gauging and focusing on what your Level of Activity is across the site.
Activity Contests
To encourage intensified use of the forum for a time, it may be that an Activity Contest is setup (perhaps not always known in advance by the users, as vBAA does not publish active or future contests, so contests will be known only if publicised) to help with this.
An Activity Contest measures the amount of activity within a given time frame, and users who achieve the minimum Activity Points set will be ranked in order, the first to reach the level of points required receiving the top prize (usually an Award) and a number of Runners-Up will also receive prizes.
Promotions
Depending on the setup of your forum, it may be possible to be promoted (or even demoted) to another usergroup by certain types of Activity on the site. Check with your Administrators for more information on whether this is available and what Activity qualifies for it.
Now we have examined some key features, let us example what is available on the main vBAA home screen.
The vBActivity Home
As pointed out before the Activity Home (/vbactivity.php) page contains a sidebar with a number of options, which are explained below:
{{vbactivityhomelist.png}}
• Achievements (/vbactivity.php?do=achievements): This page displays a list of users who have qualified for various Achievements, and the time they did so.
• Promotions (/vbactivity.php?do=promotions): This page lists all users who have been promoted via their activity to another usergroup.
• Trophies (/vbactivity.php?do=trophies): This page displays a list of users who have gained or lost a Trophy, and the time they did so.
• Awards (/vbactivity.php?do=medals): This page displays a list of users who have received an Award, and the time they did so.
• Activity Feed (/vbactivity.php?do=activity): This page displays a list or feed of all the recent Activity on the site, and the date and time the Activity happened.
• Ranking (/vbactivity.php?do=ranking): This page displays a list of the forums users ranked according to one of a number of options: Daily Activity, Weekly Activity, Monthly Activity, Activity Level, or Points.
• Leaderboards (/vbactivity.php?do=leaderboards): This page contains a Flash leaderboard (if activated) as well as a text version of the top X in each category of points that can be earned on the site.
• Achievement Targets (/vbactivity.php?do=achievtargets): This page displays a list of Activity Targets the site has set for users to achieve.
• All Achievements (/vbactivity.php?do=allachievements): This page lists the Achievements on the site, along with the users (linked to their profile) that have gained this Achievement.
• All Awards (/vbactivity.php?do=allawards): This page lists the Awards on the site, along with the users (linked to their profile) that have received this Award.
• Activity Contests (/vbactivity.php?do=contests): This page lists all of the Activity Contests that have already been completed on the site, along with the dates they took place, the target and the users who made the top places in it.
• Activity Target Winners (/vbactivity.php?do=activitystats): This page lists each of the Activity Targets (daily, weekly and monthly where applicable) that have been won, and who won them.
vBActivity in Your Profile
The profile page of each user contains a section showing their Activity on the site. Each profile page contains several sections.
The Activity Information section contains a number of key statistics about the user’s Activity on the site, some of which can be turned on or off by the forum’s Administrators. Among the key details that are displayed are:
{{vbactivityprofile.png}}
• Total Points: A combined total of all Activity Points a user has received.
• Activity Level: The level a user has achieved on the site.
• To Next Level: How many Activity Points need to be accumulated to reach the next level.
• Percent Into Level: A percentage of how far through the Level a user has progressed.
• Daily Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected daily on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Weekly Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected weekly on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Monthly Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected monthly on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Points: A list of all the point types available on the site, and how many the user has accumulated or lost in a certain type.
In addition to that section of the Profile, there is also a list of the following:
• Achievements: A list of all the Achievements a user has earned, and the date they earned them.
• Awards: A list of all the Awards a user has been given, and the date they earned them.
• Currently Held Trophies: A list of all the Trophies a user currently has, and the date they earned them, and how many times they’ve earned them.
• Previously Held Trophies: A list of all the Trophies a user has had in the past, and the date they last held them, and how many times they’ve earned them.
vBActivity in the Postbit
In the postbit section of a forum post, information may be displayed (dependent on the forum settings) about vBAA, which we will explain in more detail here.
Next to the username of a user will be displayed the Trophies they currently hold.
The Numerical Statistics of vBAA, their Points and Level, as well as graphical and numerical bars detailing their progress to the next Level and their progress in percentage to reaching their Daily, Weekly and Monthly Activity Targets.
{{vbactivitypostbit.png}}
A list of the top X amount of Achievements will also be graphically displayed at the bottom of the postbit.
vBActivity User Settings
Each user can adjust the display settings of what they would like to see displayed or not in the user’s postbit area. Navigate to the Activity section of the Settings (/vbactivity.php?do=profile&action=options) page and then choose from the following options:
{{vbactivityusercp.png}}
• Hide “Daily Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Daily Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Monthly Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Monthly Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Weekly Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Weekly Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Points”: This setting controls whether the “Points” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Level”: This setting controls whether the “Level” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Lv. Percent”: This setting controls whether the “Lv. Percent” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Auto Collapse Stats: This setting lets you turn on automatic collapse of the Activity Stats in the postbit.
• Auto Collapse Activity Bars: This setting lets you turn on automatic collapse of the Activity Bars in the postbit.
Summary
In summary, the point to vBAA is to be active and busy on the forum. Get involved in as much as you can, and your vBAA Activity Level will increase along with your points, helping to display your value to the community. If there are any questions you are still struggling to find answers to, ask one of your Administrators or Moderators and they will provide you with the answer.
Using vBActivity
“Welcome to vBActivity!” So read the first words most of you will have come across when reaching the page from the navbar tab “Activity”. What are vBActivity and the Activity system all about?
{{vbactivitynavbar.png}}
All forums suffer a similar fate, that of inactivity. We mean by that each forum reaches a point where there are far more inactive users, than active ones. However, encouraging people to be active isn’t the easiest thing to do, as being active isn’t just about a post count, or even a reputation level. In most modern forums (and especially vBulletin) there are many different ways that a person can be active (such as Social Discussions, Blogs, Visitor Messages), and yet there is no way of allowing a user to reflect that.
vBActivity is designed to counter this problem, encourage greater activity on forums, and providing goals to reach for. Let us explain how things work.
{{vbactivityhome.png}}
The Home page of vBActivity (/vbactivity.php) (we’ll call it vBAA for short from now on) provides a sidebar that has several links to various features of vBAA. Some or all of these features will be available dependent on the settings made by your forum administrators.
Before we review the different areas in depth, let us explain what the various terms mean that we will use about the Activity system.
Achievements
All users can work hard to achieve certain criteria in many areas of the website. So for example, there may be five achievements relating to posts, one when you reach 50 posts, another at 100, 250, 500, and 1000 posts. As you achieve those goals you will gain an Achievement ‘badge’ (usually displayed along with your posts, but more details on where they are displayed in full later on). Most badges have a picture associated with them that help visualize that achievement. Any user who meets the criteria for an achievement will receive it.
{{vbactivityachievements.png}}
Criteria for Achievements (and indeed many other aspects of vBAA) can include posts, threads, visitor messages, blogs, blog replies, length of registration, referrals, friends, shouts (when vBShout is installed), mentions received and mentions given (when User Tagging is installed), thread ratings, reputation, polls, poll voting, etc. The list is extensive, and it would be best to investigate personally what is available on the site, perhaps asking one of the moderators or administrators. In essence, most things you can do on the site can be logged, and if setup by the administrators, can count towards achievements.
Trophies
The highest scorer in each tracked criteria gains a ‘trophy’ as being the best (or worse depending on the context, such as with infractions) and holds that trophy while ever they are the leader. This trophy often shows up next to the username of the person who holds it, for example next to their posts.
Trophies allow for a friendly competition to excel in one or more areas of the site, encouraging the use of quieter areas of a forum, such as blogging and social groups. This in turn establishes the activity of the site further.
Awards
It is also possible for users to be handed an ‘award’ that may or may not be directly related to vBAA on the site. Awards can be given to those who win or who are runner-up in Activity Contests (more on these below) or can be Requested or Nominated by users. Requesting an award can be done by you, or you can nominate someone else for a reward you feel they should have. It may not be always possible to request or nominate awards, depending on the setup on your forum.
Awards might be something like ‘User of the Month’ or ‘Legendary Moderator’. The awards that are available on your forum will depend on your forum’s setup by your admin. You may want to suggest creating awards if they aren’t available currently.
Activity Points
Activity Points are collected by users for various things they do on the forum, some are obvious such as starting threads, posting replies, blog entries, etc. Others will also include tagging threads, using polls, creating polls, and many more. What point values these have will depend on the setup of your forum.
Some Activities will create a negative value, so be careful not to end up receiving them. It may also be that the site has a period of time where some actions give you more points than at other times. The Administrators and Moderators will no doubt give you heads up information on this before that is put into place.
Activity Levels
As the Activity Points grow for a user, their ‘level’ of Activity increases. The Levels are automatically created by the software dependent on the average Activity across the forum. This is a quick way of gauging and focusing on what your Level of Activity is across the site.
Activity Contests
To encourage intensified use of the forum for a time, it may be that an Activity Contest is setup (perhaps not always known in advance by the users, as vBAA does not publish active or future contests, so contests will be known only if publicised) to help with this.
An Activity Contest measures the amount of activity within a given time frame, and users who achieve the minimum Activity Points set will be ranked in order, the first to reach the level of points required receiving the top prize (usually an Award) and a number of Runners-Up will also receive prizes.
Promotions
Depending on the setup of your forum, it may be possible to be promoted (or even demoted) to another usergroup by certain types of Activity on the site. Check with your Administrators for more information on whether this is available and what Activity qualifies for it.
Now we have examined some key features, let us example what is available on the main vBAA home screen.
The vBActivity Home
As pointed out before the Activity Home (/vbactivity.php) page contains a sidebar with a number of options, which are explained below:
{{vbactivityhomelist.png}}
• Achievements (/vbactivity.php?do=achievements): This page displays a list of users who have qualified for various Achievements, and the time they did so.
• Promotions (/vbactivity.php?do=promotions): This page lists all users who have been promoted via their activity to another usergroup.
• Trophies (/vbactivity.php?do=trophies): This page displays a list of users who have gained or lost a Trophy, and the time they did so.
• Awards (/vbactivity.php?do=medals): This page displays a list of users who have received an Award, and the time they did so.
• Activity Feed (/vbactivity.php?do=activity): This page displays a list or feed of all the recent Activity on the site, and the date and time the Activity happened.
• Ranking (/vbactivity.php?do=ranking): This page displays a list of the forums users ranked according to one of a number of options: Daily Activity, Weekly Activity, Monthly Activity, Activity Level, or Points.
• Leaderboards (/vbactivity.php?do=leaderboards): This page contains a Flash leaderboard (if activated) as well as a text version of the top X in each category of points that can be earned on the site.
• Achievement Targets (/vbactivity.php?do=achievtargets): This page displays a list of Activity Targets the site has set for users to achieve.
• All Achievements (/vbactivity.php?do=allachievements): This page lists the Achievements on the site, along with the users (linked to their profile) that have gained this Achievement.
• All Awards (/vbactivity.php?do=allawards): This page lists the Awards on the site, along with the users (linked to their profile) that have received this Award.
• Activity Contests (/vbactivity.php?do=contests): This page lists all of the Activity Contests that have already been completed on the site, along with the dates they took place, the target and the users who made the top places in it.
• Activity Target Winners (/vbactivity.php?do=activitystats): This page lists each of the Activity Targets (daily, weekly and monthly where applicable) that have been won, and who won them.
vBActivity in Your Profile
The profile page of each user contains a section showing their Activity on the site. Each profile page contains several sections.
The Activity Information section contains a number of key statistics about the user’s Activity on the site, some of which can be turned on or off by the forum’s Administrators. Among the key details that are displayed are:
{{vbactivityprofile.png}}
• Total Points: A combined total of all Activity Points a user has received.
• Activity Level: The level a user has achieved on the site.
• To Next Level: How many Activity Points need to be accumulated to reach the next level.
• Percent Into Level: A percentage of how far through the Level a user has progressed.
• Daily Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected daily on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Weekly Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected weekly on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Monthly Activity: A percentage of the amount of activity that is expected monthly on the forum, automatically calculated.
• Points: A list of all the point types available on the site, and how many the user has accumulated or lost in a certain type.
In addition to that section of the Profile, there is also a list of the following:
• Achievements: A list of all the Achievements a user has earned, and the date they earned them.
• Awards: A list of all the Awards a user has been given, and the date they earned them.
• Currently Held Trophies: A list of all the Trophies a user currently has, and the date they earned them, and how many times they’ve earned them.
• Previously Held Trophies: A list of all the Trophies a user has had in the past, and the date they last held them, and how many times they’ve earned them.
vBActivity in the Postbit
In the postbit section of a forum post, information may be displayed (dependent on the forum settings) about vBAA, which we will explain in more detail here.
Next to the username of a user will be displayed the Trophies they currently hold.
The Numerical Statistics of vBAA, their Points and Level, as well as graphical and numerical bars detailing their progress to the next Level and their progress in percentage to reaching their Daily, Weekly and Monthly Activity Targets.
{{vbactivitypostbit.png}}
A list of the top X amount of Achievements will also be graphically displayed at the bottom of the postbit.
vBActivity User Settings
Each user can adjust the display settings of what they would like to see displayed or not in the user’s postbit area. Navigate to the Activity section of the Settings (/vbactivity.php?do=profile&action=options) page and then choose from the following options:
{{vbactivityusercp.png}}
• Hide “Daily Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Daily Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Monthly Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Monthly Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Weekly Activity”: This setting controls whether the “Weekly Activity” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Points”: This setting controls whether the “Points” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Level”: This setting controls whether the “Level” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Hide “Lv. Percent”: This setting controls whether the “Lv. Percent” statistic should show in the postbit.
• Auto Collapse Stats: This setting lets you turn on automatic collapse of the Activity Stats in the postbit.
• Auto Collapse Activity Bars: This setting lets you turn on automatic collapse of the Activity Bars in the postbit.
Summary
In summary, the point to vBAA is to be active and busy on the forum. Get involved in as much as you can, and your vBAA Activity Level will increase along with your points, helping to display your value to the community. If there are any questions you are still struggling to find answers to, ask one of your Administrators or Moderators and they will provide you with the answer.
Mokonzi
Former Developer
Trekkan provided me with a few small tweaks in wording and spelling to the manual, so I've updated the manual file, but the following changes need changing to the online HTML version (Dylan and Fillip H.):
http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/concept.htm
Change:
Change:
On the following pages (http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_upload.htm, http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_uploa2.htm, http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_uploa2_2.htm) change the instance (one on each page) of:
Change:
On this page: http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/additional_vbactivity_settings.htm
Change:
http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/concept.htm
Change:
To:
Change:
To:
On the following pages (http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_upload.htm, http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_uploa2.htm, http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/preparing_the_files_for_uploa2_2.htm) change the instance (one on each page) of:
Change:
To:
On this page: http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/docs/vbactivity/additional_vbactivity_settings.htm
Change:
To:
