What a powerful plugin! How did you configure it?

MasterOne

@hgtonight‌, thanks a lot, this is a truly amazing plugin! I have just installed it in my test setup, and now I'm wondering on how to configure it.

Maybe someone can give a few hints?

• Did you add more reactions and which?
• Which badges did you implement and is there a suitable badge image collection available for download somewhere?
• Which ranks did you implement?
• Any other hints on configuring?

Just trying to get a feel of what's possible and practical.

JanHoos

Hi!
I've got it standing by on my soon to be, new forum. Right now I'm using a wordpress plugin that lacks all sorts of functionality so I'm working hard on badges and then we'll use the awesome Vanilla forum coupled with YAGA.

I did add an awesome reaction, but found out later that I did not need it. I have a like reaction and helpful reaction and that covers it. The reason to remove awesome was, whats the difference between a like and an awesome post?

I'm still working on the badges as stated earlier. I've added a screenshot from my badges screen. I run an airsoft team so I've got a bunch of manual badges in there as well. I'm not sure yet if I'm happy with the posts badges. Might add some more smaller steps in there, but on the other hand... not sure if I want to bother with the smaller steps.

What you want to do with the badges is try and get users to perform certain behavior for those badges. Show them you appreciate it when they added a profile picture, answered questions or introduced themselves for instance.

I also added post badges, like badges (1st like, 5th like, 50th like, etc.) up until a certain number. On my to do list theres still some badges like special holiday dates (halloween, valentine, christmas), birthdays and certain forum categories to name a few.

I did not implement ranks as thats something I don't want to use. I also want to remove the score lists. They do not display well on my embedded forum using bootstrap.

MasterOne

Thanks a lot, @JanHoos, that's a good start for sure. I want to use ranks as well, for members getting promoted to a higher role to access a special members' category.

How does the proper permissions setup look like?

I guess Badges only "View", and Reactions "Add", "Edit" and "View"?

If Reactions are only set to "Add" and "View" it means a member of that role can only add a reaction but not remove it (if he changed his mind), for which "Edit" is required, right?

JanHoos

No problem!

For my set-up, add is enough to make a member able to add and remove reactions

MasterOne

@JanHoos said:
For my set-up, add is enough to make a member able to add and remove reactions

I see, then "Edit" is a permission to edit some else's reaction.

JanHoos

@MasterOne‌ Yes, I guess so!

hgtonight

@MasterOne said:
How does the proper permissions setup look like?

I guess Badges only "View", and Reactions "Add", "Edit" and "View"?

If Reactions are only set to "Add" and "View" it means a member of that role can only add a reaction but not remove it (if he changed his mind), for which "Edit" is required, right?

The permissions are explained in settings/about.php but I would suggest your normal users have Yaga.Reactions.Add and Yaga.Reactions.View

MasterOne

Well, I haven't implemented Yaga yet, but this is the first reaction on my implementation proposal from another stuff member:

Suggest removing the dislike button. I've heard it said that if you have nothing good to say then don't say anything and i think there's some sense behind that.

Suggest using the term "Useful Post" instead of Like. Both these measures were adopted from a like/dislike forum i frequent and have made the place a lot more comfortable with a lot less complaints in public.

Is there a downside to run the reactions without one that subtracts points?

Those comments are reasonable, I wasn't quite sure about the "Dislike" either. For some reason the "Useful Post" is not very appealing to me, and I honestly sometimes don't know if to click "Insightful" or "Awesome" here on Vanilla Forums (never clicked the LOL so far).

I didn't expect making these choices to be so difficult. I wanted to limit reactions to two or three, but now I so not sure which. Pretty much the same goes for badges, I didn't find any appealing badge image collections, and I'm not so talented coming up with my own, also I'm still clueless on a useful badges setup, how many badges all together and their rules.

I wish some other users of Yaga would chime in and tell something about their configuration.

peregrine

Negative points were used on this forum once and - a few of us found it pretty irritating and it was removed. I think they provide no value at all, except to drive people away when people subtract hard-earned points from them.

vrijvlinder

Yes, MasterOne (or some people) would have been marked a Troll several times by now .....

On the other hand if you run an S&M forum some people may consider humiliating badges a good thing !

MasterOne

Well, no negative points then, I can see where this could lead to...

Something like "Insightful", "Awesome" and "LOL" is no bad idea at all, but I fear that my forum users may be confused especially by the first two. I was hoping for some more input before I implement it, because as mentioned in another discussion here it would be a pretty bad idea to change the rules once the game is running, and nothing useful came from my other staff members.

peregrine

ask your forum members what they want. take a poll with discussion polls and give them a choice of a few options and they can could suggest names.

[Deleted User]

Since you wanted hints, I could tell you how my forum's Yaga reactions are made up. I have an Like, Dislike, Promote (Sorry, Vanilla!), and Verified. I went into the about.php and made permissions for Promote & Verified so that only Admins & Staff could use them. For Badges, if you don't wanna go professional for the images, I recommend you create one yourself out of a painting application. If you wanna go with professional images, go with it, but I usually make my own creative ones because it lets me think of something I actually like. Now, for Ranks, I have a role for the owner or the CEO, as I like to call it. I do all the other roles or "jobs" as well. I hope this helped you!

MasterOne

@peregrine said:
ask your forum members what they want. take a poll with discussion polls and give them a choice of a few options and they can could suggest names.

Awesome, haven't thought to take another look for a poll plugin yet, I can see that @hgtonight‌ has been busy since I last checked.

hgtonight

Just wanted to say that the 'meh' reaction we use gives out zero points. We don't have any negative point reactions either.

Why have zero point reactions? Users can vent their frustrations without 'harming' others. Also, you can tie funny badges into the reactions. "They Can't All Be Gems" is given the first time you receive a meh reaction.

peregrine

A nice addition to this plugin "Would be a grain of salt reaction" where users click on grain of salt for useless and silly posts and wrong-headed posts and answers, and when the number of different individuals who have posted this reaction for a specific user. Then all their comments will be marked with a grain of salt to indicate to other users that the individual posting comments should have all their comments viewed with a grain of salt. That way if you have a troll that you don't want to outright ban, at least other people would know not to participate in discussions with "grain of salt" posters and ignore their comments or at least take their comments with a grain of salt.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/take-with-a-grain-of-salt.html

r0obert

@peregrine sounds like a great feature, what's the best way to implement it?

peregrine

@r0obert said:
peregrine sounds like a great feature, what's the best way to implement it?

create an icon with a grain of salt. explain to all your users what "a grain of salt" means. Assign a reaction.

r0obert

@peregrine I misunderstood you, I thought you meant something along these lines:

1. User 'A' posts a number of silly/wrong-headed/useless/trolling posts.
2. Other Users click 'Salt' or 'Grain of Salt' Reaction button on those posts.
3. Once total number of "Salted" posts (User A's) reach a certain number (preset, eg. 10) -> all of User A's future posts will be "Salted" somehow (eg. have an embedded "Salt" badge/icon/image/etc), regardless of them having any current "Salt" reactions, acting basically like a warning for new readers that lets them know User A might be ironical/trolling/not serious/etc.

Makes sense?

GrainOfSaltReactionHere

peregrine

yes thats exactly what I thought. or you could have a different background on the comment or discussion.

two ways...

without looking at the plugin code all you need to know is the Total number of points a user has for the grain of salt reaction and add a class to comment or discussion or an icon

or

promote them to a certain role after they reach a certain number of Grain of Salt reactions.

then in your plugin check for it. if they have a role or promotion (so to speak), and add a class to comment or discussion or an icon and change background color of post or something.

should be trivial for Youuuu to implement.

P.S. I'm hoping you tell me the countdown plugin worked for you.

hgtonight

@r0obert said:
peregrine I misunderstood you, I thought you meant something along these lines:

1. User 'A' posts a number of silly/wrong-headed/useless/trolling posts.
2. Other Users click 'Salt' or 'Grain of Salt' Reaction button on those posts.
3. Once total number of "Salted" posts (User A's) reach a certain number (preset, eg. 10) -> all of User A's future posts will be "Salted" somehow (eg. have an embedded "Salt" badge/icon/image/etc), regardless of them having any current "Salt" reactions, acting basically like a warning for new readers that lets them know User A might be ironical/trolling/not serious/etc.

Makes sense?

GrainOfSaltReactionHere

This could be configured in Yaga via Ranks. The only extra work on your end would be the styling to change the color of posts or insert the warning words.

This sounds quite similar to the bury/auto-mod functionality of the hosted product.