Skip to main content

Two new sections on The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

We added two new sections to The Batavian this morning.

First, "Housing." We didn't call it real estate because that implies only homes for sale can be listed there.  We also welcome rental listings.  Ads, of course, are free to both FSBO (for sale by owner) and agents/brokers.  We just ask that agents and brokers submit listings only, not general marketing messages. 

If you click on the "Housing" link now, you'll find a post of home sales since January.  We'll post real estate transactions each month under "Housing" from now on.  This data is public record and provided to us by the County.  It's a common bit of public data to share by news organizations in most communities, but it seems to be a new idea in Genesee County.

The second new section is "Announcements." This is a place for individuals and community organizations to post information about upcoming events, engagements/weddings, births or anything else appropriate to announce to the community.  Click on the "Announcements" link on the tabs above and read the first post, which instructions for posting.  Tell your friends.

Sherry Tacy

Great additions! I hope that everyone utilizes the "announcements". Always great to see what's going on in our area and terrific to see who has tied the knot, started a family, celebrations. Great idea!

Sep 19, 2008, 1:09pm Permalink
Gabor Deutsch

This website is really taking off.
My hats off to all staff and everyone involved with the batavian.
Its great to have something like this for all of Genesee County to share.

Sep 19, 2008, 2:27pm Permalink
Tom Gilliatt

How about a chat room for the Batavian? I run one on my site... If not know maybe the future and yes the two new sections are good and adds more spice to the site

Good work Howard

Tom

Sep 19, 2008, 4:49pm Permalink
Gabor Deutsch

I think the chat site would be great.
I would only like it if it was people from genesee county and stuff to do about thebatavian. I have been to other chat sites and its so crazy.

Sep 19, 2008, 4:58pm Permalink
IMA CREEP

I don't think it's a legal issue, Dave. the Buffalo news gives names of the buyer and seller as well as the street address. I think the additions to the site are great, but the info isn't very useful.

Sep 20, 2008, 8:05am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

On the spreadsheet we got there were no street numbers. We'll check into that. We did have buyers and sellers names, but I left those out for space reasons. We are limited to row length by the width of the page design on this site. We'll eventually present the information in a different format, but for now this is what we're limited to.

Sep 20, 2008, 8:43am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Tom, it's in the works now. A programmer is coding as we speak. I don't have ETA, but we'll have expanded profiles and some social networking tools (friends, messages to friends, etc.). It's the next major upgrade to the site.

Sep 20, 2008, 9:35am Permalink
Bea McManis

A chat room would be a great idea.
There are times when posting just isn't enough to get a real conversation going.
Looking forward to the new updates.

Sep 20, 2008, 9:47am Permalink
Tom Gilliatt

Thanks Howared and if you ever need some help let me know (email) I have my own server and forum as you know and maybe I might help, I have messed with these php, perl and sql forums for awhile I'm no programmer but I have learned from my mistakes with this stuff and I used to have alot of them.

;)

Tom

Sep 20, 2008, 10:00am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Define what you mean by chat room. Some people call a "forum" a chat room; I've even seen these kinds of messages on posts "chats."

So just be clear on what the request is:

-- A chat room is a place where people can log in and send messages back and forth in real time ... just like a conversation, but typing instead of talking. A whole group of people can be in the room at the same time. Everybody can see the conversation; everybody can add to the conversation. All at once.

-- A forum is a place where people can post on a topic and then other people come along later and respond to it.

Either of these are doable. But two points: I'll need to check with my developers on chat room options and find the best to work with Drupal and our server configuration; and on forums, the way this site is set up, is kind of like a forum already: Anybody can start a new topic to discuss just by creating a new blog post. This aspect of the site will be even more effective once we get the new profiles/social networking in place.

Sep 20, 2008, 10:25am Permalink
Tom Gilliatt

Your definitions for chat and forum are right and yes The Batavian is already like a forum but real time chatting for the Batavian site would be an added + for this site only thing I can see wrong is server load unless you have a beefy server already and people that spam or post offensive things but that could happen here anyways.

There is tons of free chat software out there and I do have one on my site but it is coupled with the member database and this is something you would need here.

Here is my chat room used for my site if you don't mind me posting this Howard
http://tomsinternetyardsale.com/chat/ as you can see mine is integrated into my site this is what you should use here or can use my opinion. My chat room you can use any user name with out a password but you can't chat unless your a member this is some thing you could use here allowing none members to see the chat room but not chat unless they join

I looked up Drupal software on Yahoo and they do have a chat room add on for there software http://drupal.org/project/chatroom uses Ajax so server load is not as bad also server configuration would or should not be a problem because if you already run Drupal it will run the chat room too...

Thanks Howard your a good admin with these fast replies and taking into consideration on what members would like to see on the site.

Tom

Sep 20, 2008, 11:04am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Tom, I've been involved with a lot of chat over the years. Well The Batavian is growing fast, in relation to the whole Web it will always be a small site; that means, a chat room is more likely to sit empty than not, and when people find an empty chat room all the time, they're not likely to try it again.

For chat to work on a site like this, you need somebody who will schedule chats and then participate in the chats they schedule -- sort of like a chat master.

If you were willing to volunteer for such a position, I would be much comfortable with putting chat on the site.

That said, this isn't the only site my developers are responsible for, so I can't say yet when we can get chat installed.

Sep 20, 2008, 11:11am Permalink

Authentically Local