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Subscribe to E-mail Updates from The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

We're introducing e-mail updates to The Batavian.  These updates will allow you to get information e-mailed to you about new posts and our new Deals of the Day feature.

A good portion of The Batavian's audience visits the site at least daily, but for those who do not, we thought allowing people to subscribe to e-mail updates would help them keep abreast of news and information from the site.

  • News Updates: This will mostly be a daily e-mail, which I'll try to get out around 5 p.m. each week day, but in the event of an important breaking story, I may send out an e-mail when that story breaks.
  • Deals of the Day: You will receive an e-mail from this update list whenever we post a Deal of the Day.  This is a great way to quickly get notified when the deal is posted.

This lists are available to all registered users of The Batavian. You can access the lists any time from the "Mailing Lists register" link under "My Accounts" when you're logged in. If you're logged in now, you can get to the mailing lists page by clicking here.

We have a simple expection on The Batavian: Use your real name

By Howard B. Owens

What is it with Republicans and posting on The Batavian? It seems not many of them post, and when they do, too often we figure out later that they are not using their real names.

  • MIchael Barney
  • Michael Farnsworth
  • Maddie LaNova
  • Niel Hamburger
  • Robert Drewinski

And now Frank Michaels: All apparently fake names espousing conservative, if not overtly, Republican views.

I'm not interested in making this a partisan issue, but geez ... the trend here is disturbing. Why can't local Republicans do, as many active local Democrats do, and comment freely under their real names?

Michael Barney, of course, turned out to be County Legislator Jay Grasso.

Farnsworth and LaNova left pro-Grasso comments on the post about Grasso, such as:

This is so not cool! Everybody goes on line with other names! I sat in a high school class that Legislator Grasso came to when I was a Senior. It is a local government seminar. He was pretty decent. He talked about how to access your local government and things like that. He also helped some kids with their exit projects. He did not come accross as political and I did not know his party from it. If he was posting s**t like "vote for grasso", then you should hammer him. He did not do this. Not cool at all.

Farnsworth, LaNova and Frank Michaels all have one thing in common:  They're using the same Road Runner business account IP address.

Grasso, for his part, denies emphatically that he is Frank Michaels.

"I give you my word," Grasso said. "I don’t need the aggravation from the Dems. They would eat me alive."

So here's my plea to local Republicans: We want your comments as much as anybody's on The Batavian, we just ask that you use your real names. Is that too much to ask?

And apologies to the Republicans on the site who are posting under their real names, and there are a few, but I wish the attempts at fake names would stop.  It would be good to have more conservative voices on the site (we often get accused of being a Democratic haven). We just expect both conservatives and progressives to use their real names.  Why try to subvert that? We almost always figure it out.

Support the advertisers who support The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

If you enjoy The Batavian, it's important that you support our advertisers. That's how we will be able to stay in business.

Current advertisers:

To promote your business on The Batavian, call Howard Owens at 585-260-6970, or write to me at howard (at) thebatavian dot com.

Most viewed posts for March 2009 on The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

According to our internal statistics, these were the most viewed posts in March.

And since I forgot to post this list for February, here it is:

The Batavian's calendar of events

By Howard B. Owens

Don't forget to submit your date-specific events to The Batavian's Calendar.

If your business, civic group, sports organization or church group has an upcoming event, you should be sure it's in our calendar.

Click on the "add event" link under the calendar on the right side of The Batavian's Web pages.

If you tag the post "announcements" it will also show up in our announcements section.

Introducing The Batavian's Community Calendar

By Howard B. Owens

For months we've offered the "Announcements" section as a place for civic groups to share information about their events and news, but the section isn't as useful if you're wondering what's happening on a specific date.

Today, we added an actual calendar to the site.

To add an item to the calendar go to "Create Content" and then click on the "Event" link.

If you tag your event "announcements" it will also show up in Announcements.

To view the calendar, you'll find it on the right side of the page.

While Howard's away, the community gets to play

By Brian Hillabush

 Good morning everybody.

If you saw Howard's post on Friday, you know he is away this week. He will be missed, but is going to be posting when he gets a chance. The workaholic he is, is on vacation and won't be able to help any issues people have.

I am obviously still very much involved with The Batavian and have volunteered to help out this week. I am here for any help needed or if anybody has questions, so if you have them you can email me at brianhillabush@yahoo.com.

I'm also a sports guy but will do my best to update news this week, so if you have any tips you can send them to me and I'll look into things (I can use the help on this one). I am still fighting a bit of the flu, which has kept me on the couch all weekend, but I look forward to making any calls or doing some research if a topic comes up. 

Also, with Howard gone I am looking for content. I have a Buffalo Bills post and something on Batavia's basketball team planned for the next day or two, but I welcome submissions from readers this week. That is what this site is all about.

It isn't football season, but the Bills are the biggest local topic right now and I challenge the community to give us great stories about the team and attending games. I'd love to hear stories about attending the games when Buffalo had the best offense in the NFL, or even a post about the current state of going to Ralph Wilson Stadium and dealing with the problems involved with doing so. Please feel free to post about your experiences at the stadium, just make sure to tag it sports to it goes right to the sports page. The best will make the main page.

 

 

Hilly steps up big to help The Batavian next week

By Howard B. Owens

I have a pre-arranged trip to the West Coast I'm taking. I fly out in the morning and won't be back for a week.  I figure I should take the trip while I can and see my parents, as well as take care of a little business (there might even be a positive development or two for The Batavian as a result).

While I'll be able to check on the site and even post here and there, Brian Hillabush has volunteered to stay on top of things, too, and help keep the site updated.

Site going down for 15-45 minutes

By Howard Owens

We need to take the site down to switch servers - we should be back up by 10:30am EST at the latest.

Server switch at 10 p.m. tonight for The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

We're migrating The Batavian to a new server tonight. The switch is scheduled for 10 p.m.  This could lead to some down time. The site might be unaccessible for up to an hour.

A new chapter for The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

I've taken over The Batavian as my full-time and only job.

Over the next week, I'll be moving the site to a new server. I don't anticipate any disruption in service.

I want to thank Philip Anselmo and Brian Hillabush for all the great work they've done on the site. They're a huge part of the site's success. Philip is moving on to another reporting position.  Brian and I are discussing how we'll be able to continue working together.

Next week, I'll be in our Batavia office ready to cover the news and sell advertising.  As time goes by I'll have more announcements about what we'll be doing with the site. I still have new features to add, many of which will please local advertisers.

My wife and I are listing our house in Pittsford for sale and as soon as it sells, we will rent a place in Batavia (or maybe elsewhere in Genesee County).  I expect we'll see my wife's byline in The Batavian before too long.

The Batavian launches new business directory for Genesee County

By Howard B. Owens

Many of you have noticed -- I know because I've gotten calls and comments -- a link that joined the top navigation of the site a couple of weeks ago: Local Businesses.

It is a new online business directory for Genesee County.

Every business in Genesee County gets a free basic listing.  We encourage you to use it to find local goods and services.

For business owners and managers, here's what  is important for you to know: Upgrades are available.

For a fee, business get enhanced listings which includes more information about the firm.

Our first two enhanced listings have been posted:

But an enhanced listing is not the coolest part of this directory.

We're working with a company out of California called Search Initiatives to power our directory.

As most business owners now recognize, hardly anybody uses the yellow pages these days. When people with online access want to find a business, they go to Google or Yahoo.  If your business isn't part of the top search results, it's almost as if your business doesn't even exist.

Search Initiatives specializes in helping businesses get found on the Web.  They've been helping businesses for a number of years and is maybe the leading such firm in the world.  We're proud they picked The Batavian to launch its new directory product.

So when you buy an enhanced listing on The Batavian, you're not just buying an ad on The Batavian, you're helping improve your business's search ranking in Google and Yahoo!

The standard package is $49 to set up and then $59 per month.  Businesses that sign up prior to March 31 will get a free "trackable" phone number -- what that means is we'll be able to deliver monthly report showing you how many times you're phone rang because of the service.

We also can offer a limited number of upgraded packages that adds more features to help your business be among the best ranked in Google and Yahoo. These packages are $70 set up and $89 per month.

Here's a full media kit for directory advertising.  And as long as we're talking about advertising, here's our display advertising media kit.

If you want to get your business started advertising on The Batavian, or have questions, contact me at howard (at) thebatavian dot com.

Member of County Legislature posting on The Batavian under assumed name

By Howard B. Owens

Jerome Grasso, LeRoy representative of the Genesee County Legislature has posted 14 comments over the past four weeks as Michael Barney.

In a conversation this afternoon, Grasso admitted that he made the posts because in his new part-time job he is discouraged from blogging.

"I love the site," Grasso said. "I ain't going to bullshit you, but I missed the site and I enjoy the site immensely."

A few weeks ago, Grasso took a two-day-a-week job with State Senator Mike Ranzenhofer working out of his Erie County office.

"They haven't banned me from it (leaving comments on The Batavian), but they just don't want me on there.  But it's a good source for news and let's be real, it's damn entertaining. What can I say? I missed it."

We were alerted by local Democrats (we will let them reveal their identities in comments if they wish) that they suspected Barney was really Grasso. They noted similarities in outlook and writing style.

Upon further investigation, we found that on a handful of occasions, Barney left comments from the IP address associated with previous comments by Grasso. The Barney persona and Grasso where the only users to ever post from this IP address.

When we spoke to Grasso this morning, Grasso identified Barney as a good friend and member of the GOP county committee.  He said he wasn't surprised Barney might post from the same IP address because they were close friends.

During the conversation -- which covered a range of local topics -- Grasso mentioned that he didn't post as frequently on the site because his new employer "wasn't keen" on him blogging.

We checked with local election commissioners and found that there is no Michael Barney on any GOP committee, nor is there a Barney registered to vote in Genesee County.

During our second call with Grasso, he quickly fessed up and said he and his wife discussed the issue on a shopping trip around noon and agreed he should admit to the nom de plume.  "I can't bullshit you, Howard," he said. "I shouldn't have done it, but I just missed the site."

The Barney comments can be viewed here. Some of them do discuss county business, particularly related to the recent ambulance service controversy.

Outside of sticking up for the county's position on the ambulance service and a general conservative/Republican point of view, none of the Barney comments can be said to promote Jay Grasso. Though in one comment, he clearly contradicts the fact that Barney and Grasso are one and the same person:

Most local electeds will contact you if you reach out to them by phone. Perhaps you see Mallow and Grasso on here because they are younger. I am not sure how old they are. Does anyone know their ages? I am thinking older electeds are not familiar with blogs.

There is a term on the Web for prominent people who use fake names to promote their own causes: Sock puppets.

While I sympathize with Jay's predicament and constraints related to his new job, we clearly can't knowingly allow elected officials to post under false identities. The sock puppet issue is one of the primary reasons we do our best to enforce a real name policy on The Batavian.

Changing servers for The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

We're upgrading our web server.  We're moving The Batavian to a bigger, better, faster server (you should notice the site loads faster after the move).

We're making the switch at 11 p.m. tonight.  The Batavian will be off line for about 15 minutes.

Today's technical glitch

By Howard B. Owens

The Batavian site was down for at least 30 minutes today after one of the databases used to manage the site developed a problem and required an emergency rebuild.

After the site came back up, there was another database problem that prevented users from logging in.

All seems back to normal now.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Reminder: Watch Obama's Inauguration with The Batavian at TF Brown's

By Howard B. Owens

Join us at 11:30 for a non-partisan celebration of a free country's peaceful transfer of power, to witness history and to see if Barack Obama can live up to the hype of his inaugural address (will it be Lincolnesque, FDResque or Clintonesque? If like Clinton, we won't be getting out of their until late in the afternoon).

We'll be at TF Brown's and The Batavian will be providing free finger foods (you'll need to buy your own drinks or own full lunch, if that's what you want).

Posting under real names on The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

On The Batavian, we have a policy -- which most members of the site seem to support -- of requiring people to post using their real names.

From the first week of the site, we had a user with a first name of Laz who posted quite regularly.  I had initial doubts as to whether this was a real name, but the way people responded to him initially, I kind of got the impression that this was somebody that other people knew, so I let the name go.

A couple of weeks ago, I got complaints suggesting that Laz wasn't his real name.  I wrote him an e-mail and asked for confirmation.  I didn't get a response.

Earlier tonight, I banned his account. 

He sent me an e-mail after the banning suggesting another name was his real name, and then later suggested that name was one of three aliases he uses.

Here's the thing: We can't check physically the ID of everybody who posts to the site.  To some extent, this is an honor system. 

But if I have any reason to suspect that a user is not posting under his or her real name, I'm going to suspend that account, or at least challenge the user on the name.

We can't guarantee everybody on The Batavian is posting under his or her real name, but we will make every best, honest effort to ensure real names are used.

Inauguration party Tuesday at TF Brown's sponsored by The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

Join The Batavian and your friends and neighbors Tuesday for the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

Whether you're a Republican, Democrat or independent, you're surely mindful of historic event we'll witness Tuesday as Obama takes the oath of office and delivers his First Inaugural Address.

The Batavian will supply some appetizers/finger foods.  Guests will be responsible for the purchase of any lunches or beverages.

The Inauguration Party starts at 11:30 and will run until shortly after Obama completes his speech.  Obama takes the oath at noon.

We look forward to seeing you Tuesday at TF Brown's, 214 East Main Street.

New feature: Forums

By Howard B. Owens

Here at The Batavian, we're in a constant mode of making improvements and upgrades to the site.

One feature requested a while back was discussion boards, or forums, a place for people to start their own topics of conversation.

Tom Gilliatt, whom many of you have known as Tom G since the site launched, has agreed to help monitor and manage the forums.

Thanks, btw, to both Tom and Gabor for recently changing their user profile to include their full real name to comply with our requirement for real names on the site. 

You can reach the discussion boards through the Forums link in the navigation bar across the top of the Web page.

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