Bukkit

Note to moderators: This plugin matches perfectly the description of "informational". The whole point of the plugin is to give players information about the server based on questions they have.

Overview

In an ideal world, the owner could be on 24/7 and answers everyones questions. Unfortunately, perhaps, this is not possible. Many servers try to solve this issue by having a large staff, but sometimes staff do not know the answers, and also with a large staff comes issues of abuse. Players need their questions answered and surely there is a better way. That's where GTBHelp comes in.

GTBHelp is named after my server, GTB Minecraft, which uses this system, but since it could be useful for so many, I decided to upload it here. The UI for configuration is limited in an attempt to make the most lightweight plugin possible, but from the player standpoint, everything is very easy to understand. Everything is based on a chat system in which players can click buttons to move from page to page. After initial testing, players found it cool and easy to use.

The system also features an integrated fail system that allows you to figure out what players want to know about. Whenever the system fails at getting a relevant topic for the player, it logs the request down and you can check later to see what you should write up next. Over time, as you add more and more entries, the number of failed questions will go down and players will be able to very easily just type: /help <question> Instead of having to find an admin and ask manually.

Player Usage

When players type "/help" they will be prompted with "Type /help <question>". They simply enter their question in normal english like, "/help where can I buy a home?" The system will then provide them with suggestions which they can navigate through. Once they quit out, they will be asked if their question was answered. If so, the plugin does nothing, if not, it logs their input to the fail storage. If it is the players first time using the system, it will automatically show the player the first entry, this way you can make a tutorial for how to use the system/play the server.

Admin Usage

First load up the plugin, join the game, and type "/help admin add How do I use the help system?" This will create your default entry that players see when they first use it (you can change the title of the entry, all that matters is that it is the first one). Then, go to the plugin configuration folder and edit the "description:" field in the entries.yml file for your first entry. If you want to split the text into multiple sections, just add a new line with a - in front. Here is a sample entries.yml you could start out with. http://pastebin.com/HM4R0jfg
If you run into a yml parsing issue, you can most likely fix it by enclosing the description text in single quotes.
When you want to create a new entry, just type "/help admin add <title>". This will add the new entry to the system and automatically link any key words, if you want to link a new word, use "/help admin link <word> <title>". For example, you may check the recent fails and see that someone used a common typo, you could then link that typo with the correct entry for future users. That brings us to the fail related commands, "/help admin fails" and "/help admin fails clear". These will show you what players want to learn more about (clear will wipe the database).
The final command is "/help admin ignore <word>". This will not completely ignore a word, but rather it will prevent an entry from showing up if that is the only word that is found to match. You should add words like "how" or "what" to this list or else players will get some completely unrelated responses (although they shouldn't appear high in the list anyway).

Permissions

• help.admin.basic: /help admin link, /help admin fails [clear]
• help.admin.advanced: /help admin ignore, /help admin add, /help admin reload