Extension:ReaderFeedback

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ReaderFeedback Release status: beta
Implementation	User interface, Special page, Database
Description	Lets users and visitors rate the pages they read.
Author(s)	Aaron Schulz
MediaWiki	1.15
License	GPL
Download	Download snapshot Subversion [Help] Browse source code
Added rights feedback
Hooks used SkinAfterContent SkinTemplateBuildNavUrlsNav_urlsAfterPermalink SkinTemplateToolboxEnd BeforePageDisplay SpecialPage_initList
check usage (experimental)

Article validation allows for readers to give feedback in the form of categorical ratings.

[edit] Setup

• Download the latest snapshot and extract it to your extensions directory.
• Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.15
• Make sure '../extensions/ReaderFeedback' is readable (for CSS/JS)
• Make sure PHP has the GD libraries installed. In windows, this is done by un-commenting them out in php.ini. In linux, php should be compiled with it enabled ('--with-gd'). See a nice guide here.
• Add the following line to LocalSettings.php:

include_once('extensions/ReaderFeedback/ReaderFeedback.php');

• Run maintenance/update.php

[edit] Configuration

[edit] Basic settings

• $wgFeedbackNamespaces - An array of integers (namespaces, see defines.php) that set what namespaces pages have to be in to be rateable.
• $wgFeedbackTags - An array of tags mapped to their numeric weight. This weight is simply used to determine listings of 'overall' problematic pages. There are lists for each tag at Special:ProblemPages as well as the 'overall' list. If you value, say, "accuracy" more than "completeness", then give it more weight.

For example, to let all viewers rate pages in the Main namespace with 4 tags (reliability,completeness,npov,presentation), one would add the following to localsettings.php:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['feedback'] = true;
$wgFeedbackNamespaces = array( NS_MAIN );
$wgFeedbackTags = array(
	'reliability'  => 3,
	'completeness' => 2,
	'npov'         => 2,
	'presentation' => 1
);

The integer values above are unused, but intended to be "weights" of the importance of each tag - they may be used in the future.

[edit] Advanced

See ReaderFeedback.php for a complete list of configuration options (with some explanatory comments). Be sure to change only localsettings.php to set configuration options rather than editing this file.

[edit] Use

Readers will have a small review form on the bottom of pages they haven't voted on already (or where they voted on only older versions).

The labels for the values are set in [[MediaWiki:Readerfeedback-<tagname>]] (where tagname comes from the array key of $wgFeedbackTags.

The navigation bar/toolbox will have a "page rating" link that takes the user to Special:RatingHistory. This page show tables and time graphs of the ratings for each category, as well as the list of users that rated that page.

Also, at Special:ProblemPages, a list is maintained of pages that have received low ratings by readers. Similarly, at Special:LikedPages there is a list of highly rated pages.

[edit] Licensing

© GPL, Aaron Schulz 2007

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the license, or (at your option) any later version. This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.