Referral Contests 2 by Siropu

Referral Contests 2 by Siropu [Paid] 2.2.14

No permission to buy (€29.99)

Siropu

Well-known member
Siropu submitted a new resource:

Referral Contests 2 by Siropu - Referral links, referral contests, registration by invitation only.

This is the XF 2 version of Referral Contest.

Referral Contests allows you not only to create referral contests for your members, but you can also make your board invitation only.

Referral contests are optional and members can use their referral link without contests.

Demo, screen shots and more details coming soon.

Read more about this resource...
 
It largely works as expected so far although I have noticed a couple of areas where changes/additions could be made.

1. When dispatching invitations: at present the system dispatches invites using the email address of the person sending the invite. There needs to be an option to dispatch emails from the board default or the ability to define an email address from which all invites should be dispatched.​

This is important in order to allow members to send invites while maintaining privacy with regards to their email address, but more importantly, it's needed in order to comply with DMARC/DKIM/etc., guidelines.

When I was testing the invite system it worked fine as emails were being dispatched from my email which is admin@boardurl.com, however, when I enabled it for other staffers, emails were being dispatched from gmail addresses, etc., which resulted in immediately bounced emails, generating server errors, such as:
  • Swift_TransportException: Email to example@gmail.com failed: Expected response code 250 but got code "554", with message "554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified. The following identities failed the check in region US-EAST-1: StafferUsername <staffgmail@gmail.com>"
  • src/vendor/swiftmailer/swiftmailer/lib/classes/Swift/Transport/AbstractSmtpTransport.php:383
2. I would like to be able to define a default invite message to be filled into the invite emails, which is presently blank.​

Ideally anyone who sends an invite would explain what the site is and why they're being invited, perhaps detail certain preconditions of joining, etc., but in practice if inviters have to fill it out for each invite they send, they're just going to send it empty or almost empty.

If I could define a default message that is automatically filled into the textbox that defines the text that will be dispatched in the invite email, which invite senders can then modify or add personalized notes to, I'm sure that would ensure a much higher standard of invite emails being dispatched.

That being said, this is beta software, and these are not really intuitive issues, I certainly wouldn't have predicted them. I'm sure @Siropu will get around to it.
 
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When I ran a test to use this on XF1, we had issues where people would register multiple accounts to game the referral count if we had a contest. This would have been a larger problem if we were rewarding points from AD Credit or DBTech Credits.

Is there some way to require that referrals have to be verified or approved before the referral can count, or points are rewarded when you get to adding the DBTech integration.
 
When I ran a test to use this on XF1, we had issues where people would register multiple accounts to game the referral count if we had a contest. This would have been a larger problem if we were rewarding points from AD Credit or DBTech Credits.

Is there some way to require that referrals have to be verified or approved before the referral can count, or points are rewarded when you get to adding the DBTech integration.

I have a couple suggestions for this:

1: only allow members that have x amount of posts utilize this...
(they may not risk their account since they have worked this hard to get what they got....)

2: use cookies, along with IP ban/tracking, along with the x post count...
(if none of this stuff matches up, then someone may be cheating...)

3: When an event is triggered, then admin should be alerted to take action...

Dont give all the googies away for new members...
I never earned a high salary first day of work, I had to earn it...
(and If i get caught cheating, then I would expect to get fired, and lose
all my benefits and hard work that may have taken a long time to achieve.)
 
When I ran a test to use this on XF1, we had issues where people would register multiple accounts to game the referral count if we had a contest.
You can set "Referral minimum posts" to prevent this. I doubt that a user will create multiple accounts and start posting on each account to make it valid.

I will see if I can add a way to scan referral IPs when they access the referral link to see if it matches the referrers' and send a notification to admin if a match is found.

only allow members that have x amount of posts utilize this...
You can achieve this with user promotions and user group permissions.
 
@Siropu

When I check "use profile page as referral link"
the referral link is still showing as:
/community/?referrer=1

shouldn't the member profile link be
showing at this point?

I notice the addon uses trophy points. It would be nice if you added a feature that would not add the trophy points until the referral themselves have received x amount of posts or upgraded to a new level. This way I could convert trophy points to cash, but the affiliate would not get awarded the trophy points until their referral has made x amount of posts on the forum. If you integrate Dragons Credit addon, then the similar would apply, the affiliate would not get assigned credits until their referral has made x amount of posts. Just thought this might be a good idea to boost referrals as people tend to get more motivated when there is some type of cash incentive involved. I could do this manually, but automated sounds better. :)

thanks
 
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shouldn't the member profile link be
showing at this point?
You are right. Will be fixed in the next release.

It would be nice if you added a feature that would not add the trophy points until the referral themselves have received x amount of posts or upgraded to a new level.
There is already an option called "Referral minimum posts" but currently it doesn't work. Next release should fix that.
 
You are right. Will be fixed in the next release.


There is already an option called "Referral minimum posts" but currently it doesn't work. Next release should fix that.

sure, I just did a test using:
/community/?referrer=2
member should not be active in the contest because of post count,
and it looks like it maybe tracking anyways, a member that uses their
referral link before they are qualified to do so should get an error page
that may say something like "You have not met min requirements to use your referral link."

and as you mentioned, if it does not obey min post requirements, then the referral
will be passed without obeying any rules.

although I was not aware that it was not working until you brought
it up, so it makes perfect sense now....

I still like the idea of having a shorter URL; I can do this manually because I have a short URL script that is something like domain.com/go/custom.name then when this link is clicked, then it will redirect the link to the source link, in this case, I used a referral link, however, if you added something similar, then members could set up their own custom name, add their referral link, click save, then it members could use the shorter URL as described above. I could do this manually for forum members, but I would prefer that they could set this up themselves, it would be much easier. I also have the link "cloaked" so if a visitor would click on domain.com/go/custom.name then that is the URL they will see when they reach the site compared to the raw affiliate link, however, showing the profile link as the link is not a bad start, but I do feel that the link still could be shorter, and shorter links are far more popular and look more professional compared, longer, affiliate looking links. I think you can do quite a bit with this addon.
 
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