Newest articles and comments on The Sacramento Press written by Geoff Samek

Geoff Samek on "Why we are against SOPA"

2012-01-19T03:18:15Z

Very interesting examples, however I tend to think that the film makers you are working with are not maximizing their digital efforts. I believe the Internet is the perfect platform to offer movies for purchase with next to no overhead. More than just criticizing the possible efforts of these people I would love to hear more about this problem and offer my digital expertise. However I think that conversation is far off topic for this forum. You can reach me via email, which is just my first name at sacramentopress.com. As far as being wrong, I am often wrong, however I never said anything to the effect of there being no harm caused by piracy, I simply question what that harm is and in response to you asked for specific examples. I found the one you provided interesting and worth exploring more.

Geoff Samek on "Why we are against SOPA"

2012-01-19T02:09:20Z

Thank you for your comment! I do not agree with your statement that, "Piracy can put small businesses out of business just as easily as this legislation could put you out of business." I have seen no evidence of this and there has been no major independent research, that I am aware of, that has concluded this. I am very open to examples of small business that have failed due primarily to piracy. I am also curious in what ways you feel that copyright laws and protection don't work?

Why we are against SOPA

2012-01-19T01:32:15Z

As an owner of Macer Media, publisher of The Sacramento Press, I have never made a political statement on this site. Today I will, out of self-preservation, and a concern for what is just and good for this site, and the people of this community in general.

Wikipedia went black Wednesday due to its strong opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Google also voiced its opposition with a link on its homepage. Many other Interenet companies took similar steps.

So the first question is: What is SOPA?

SOPA is a piece of proposed legislation in the House of Representatives aimed at, you guessed it, stopping piracy. The main proponent of the bill is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and is sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The bill has both strong bipartisan support and strong bipartisan opposition. In other words, this is not at all an issue divided down party lines. Last weekend, the White House came out in opposition to the bill due to concerns about national cyber-security. A very similar bill is to be voted on in the Senate on Jan. 24, called the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

The bill’s proponents claim that the bill is aimed at stopping the piracy of American intellectual property by foreign agents. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent FAQ covering most of the basics of the bill.

So what’s the harm?

Free speech, due process and commercial viability of Internet sites who accept user-generated content are all at risk due to this legislation.

The trouble is in the wording of the bill, which gives the government and copyright holders enormous new powers to stop sites they believe are violating their intellectual property. And while the bill is targeted at foreign agents, nebulous wording would allow for significant compliance and liability costs to be passed along to organizations such as ours. This burden could easily put an organization such as The Sacramento Press out of business.

Even the well-known constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams, who was paid by the MPAA to write a letter touting the bill, admits that, “When injunctive relief includes blocking domain names, the blockage of non-infringing or protected content may result.” Censoring a little free speech can’t hurt that much, right?

Why SOPA?

That’s a good question and one of my biggest problems with the bill. The bill is premised on the idea the piracy is rampant AND that it causes material harm to the United States in the form of lost jobs and lost revenue. The question is, where’s the proof? Tim O’Reilly, owner of O’Reilly Books and a successful digital and print publisher (owner of lots of intellectual property) says it best:

“There's no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?”

I believe that it should be the burden of the proponents of the bill to prove economic harm before seeking a legislative solution.

There has only been one significant independent study done on international piracy concerns, and one of the conclusions it makes is, “…we see little reason to think that changes in IP protection or enforcement will significantly affect (international piracy).”

This is bad legislation that restricts our rights, is aimed a problem that possibly doesn’t exist and will likely do little to prevent what piracy does.

For these reasons, our company strongly opposes SOPA and PIPA.

I’m happy to answer any question and concerns you might have in the conversation below. Here is a link to the full text of the bill.

Disclosure: I contribute $10 a month to a lobbying effort known as Demand Progress. It currently lobbies against SOPA/PIPA. For more info, visit demandprogress.org.

Geoff Samek on "I Street Bridge turns 100"

2011-12-23T21:45:49Z

This bridge has always made me ask the question, what's the newest rail bridge in the continental United States? I don't see almost any bridges newer than 50 years old. Also, will this bridge ever need to be replaced?

Geoff Samek on "The Downtown arena funding plan is a complete mess"

2011-12-09T21:48:59Z

I believe you are incorrect Mr. Gonzalez, the building in the lower right corner is the Vagabond Inn which looks just as depicted in the rendering. The Denny's is south of that. The Holiday Inn is south of J Street not, I Street. UPDATE: Here is a link to Google Maps street view for added support: http://g.co/maps/tbv3c

Geoff Samek on "The Downtown arena funding plan is a complete mess"

2011-12-09T21:43:31Z

So a follow-up, have any buildings been removed in the rendering from the slideshow? If so what building in particular have been removed. As I work in the REA Express building each weekday I am fairly familiar with this part of the Sacramento skyline.

Geoff Samek on "The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2012 begins Jan. 1"

2011-12-06T04:00:27Z

After you publish on Sacpress, you may re-post the story wherever you'd like. You own the copyright to the work. For the purposes of the contest, you cannot re-post something you have already written as an entry to the contest.

Geoff Samek on "The influence of Yelp on Sacramento restaurants "

2011-11-22T19:25:01Z

I can give you a very specific example. Heat Shabu Baru. The reviews by people that went there trying Shabu for the first time, didn't want to drink alcohol and went as a couple, that's not a great fit for me when it comes to reading a review. In that case I wanted to read about the people that did the all you can eat/drink combo. I wanted to read about the late night ambiance. I wanted to read about how the place worked for groups. For me Shabu is about a group outing, so reading reviews that catered to that experience were far more helpful to me.

Geoff Samek on "The influence of Yelp on Sacramento restaurants "

2011-11-21T23:37:53Z

As with any review system you can the most out of it the more time you put into it. In my personal experience Yelp is a fascinating and essential way to dig into a new city. When in New Orleans I found it indispensable in locating a hip and delicious restaurant. and then several subsequent bars. The star rating system is really only a jumping off point. I Start trying to find a place that has 4.0+ stars. If I can find a place like that after filtering for location and price, than we are off to the races. A high star rating while rare is no guarantee that a place is worth my visit, but it points in the right direction. After that the real key is reading reviews of like minded people. This really can help you decide if the place is a good fit. Often times I feel bad reviews are the result of unmet expectations. Are you expecting a fancy white linen restaurant but you get paper on the table and lots of families with crying kids all around you? If that happens, no matter how good the food is, your opinion of the place will be more negative than if you knew more about it. I'm sure I could write a whole guide to getting the most out of Yelp. And while there are many things that could be done to improve the site (litigation non-withstanding), my biggest problem with Yelp is that it isn't more heavily used outside the United States!

Geoff Samek on "County halts new adult-related businesses for 45 days"

2011-10-05T19:40:28Z

My question is, what kind of business is a "sexual encounter center"?

Geoff Samek on "Sacpress mobile site has landed"

2011-09-22T23:31:00Z

thanks guys, it's been a long time in the making, but really all the credit goes to the tech team who did a phenomenal job with this project.

Sacpress mobile site has landed

2011-09-21T16:06:56Z

As of today The Sacramento Press has an official mobile site. The great thing about this mobile site is that it can be found at the same location as our regular site, it's way more readable on your average smartphone. Our great development team optimized most of the pages on our site for the mobile browsing experience and those pages include:

Sign-up
Log in
Front Page and Tag Pages
User Profiles
Search

The other big feature we are launching is a developer API. An API or Application Programming Interface is a way for someone to interact with our site programatically. So if someone wanted to make an application for a phone or the Web that used our publicly available data, now they can do so easily. You can sign up for an API key at the following location: http://www.sacramentopress.com/usertools/apisignup.

Beyond that, as usual, we have fixed many minor issues and implemented many new tools for our support staff – tools to help our site function better and more effeciently. And though you may not see those tools directly, you will see their results through increased coverage and quality on our site.

I hope you enjoy the new mobile site and API. As always please feel free to send me feedback directly by emailing feedback@sacramentopress.com

Geoff Samek on "Celestin's to close this month"

2011-09-08T21:30:30Z

Nooooooooooo. I eat there all the time. This is really sad. The gumbo, where will I get the gumbo?

Geoff Samek on "Bar West going too many directions"

2011-09-04T03:39:20Z

Currently my favorite wings in the grid can be found at Chicago Fire. I tend to like the spicier ones and Chicago Fire has wings with substantial heat. Substantial but not nuclear. My chief complaint about their wings is that they do tend to lack that perfect crispiness that excellent wings have, but I'll settle for slightly soggy when the flavor is so good. Great enjoyable review. I loved your last article and this is a great addition, keep 'em comin.

Geoff Samek on "Gelateria opens at 19th and Capitol"

2011-09-02T01:14:54Z

Just tried their gelato today, excellent.

Geoff Samek on "A 'neighborhood' is more than skin deep"

2011-09-01T22:15:29Z

Melissa is one of our paid editorial staffers. You'll note that and the position held by any of our writers by clicking on the small icon that comes at the end of their byline. We call those identity badges and help provide transparency on our site since anyone can post here. It is indeed an excellent article.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-09-01T17:59:07Z

Kelly, I'm happy to see that you have found our site and I appreciate your insights in this conversation section. The Sacramento Press is a platform that allows anyone to contribute without gatekeeping. Anyone can simply sign up to be a community contributor and start writing. Each article when first posted appears on the front page below the editorially selected articles. The sentiment of leaving writing to writers is obviously one with which I strongly disagree. To me that is much akin to saying leave politics to the politicians. The Sacramento Press aims to publish and hear as many voices as possible. Each member of this community has a right to speak about issues that concern them. Our goal is not to filter voices from our site and deny those writers a chance to improve their skills. We work hard to elevate the work people do over time. We do so by offering free copy editing, free workshops on a wide range of topics and general support to our community. And while increased traffic is of course important to our site, we are far more concerned with elevating our community in general and encouraging increased civic participation. If it was solely profit we were after we could have made far more money opening a Subway franchise than an online community news site. If you have any feedback about our site, its values, the merits and pitfalls of community contribution or suggestions, feel free to email me: feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-31T17:47:10Z

Have you ever been to Ancil Hoffman Park? That alone is worth going to Carmichael.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-31T02:12:57Z

We allow anyone to submit an article without any filters. Once that article is posted it must meet our terms of service. The primary point of importance is that it must be about our region. I do not feel the slightest twinge of shame over this article. The Sacramento Press was built to be, and is, an open platform for the Greater Sacramento community. The wonderful thing about our site is that you can choose to read whatever you'd like. Beyond just that, which is true of any site, you can use the 100's of RSS feeds we provide to filter what you read from our publication. If you only want to read what our paid full-time editorial staff writes, we give you the tools to do that. That will allow you to avoid reading what our community contributors write. You can filter in a number of other ways as well. If you have any more feedback about our site you can reach me directly by emailing feedback@sacramentopress.com. If you'd like to know more about how to configure a custom set of RSS feeds, please contact support@sacramentopress.com. Thank you for reading and participating .

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-29T21:54:20Z

Although the issue has been brought up many, many times before, so have many issues, like hunger, racism, poverty, and many other issues, both serious and trivial in nature. And though this issue is in no way comparable to poverty when it comes to severity, it does have at least one thing in common. It is an unresolved problem that involves a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding on both sides. Until a problem is resolved, it is always worth speaking more about it.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-29T21:52:07Z

Is there no way to observe a stereotype and not be levying an insult at the same time? Most if not all of the perceptions and stereotypes talked about in the above article are ones that I have heard before. Stereotypes that portray Central City folk as hipsters are quite prolific, as are stereotypes that portray suburbanites as narrow-minded. Overall I think the discussion here is quite excellent, with very little pure emotion and name calling. This article clearly has sparked great discussion.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-29T21:22:19Z

In addition to our editorial content this site is made up of contributions from the community, with no gate-keeping on behalf of The Sacramento Press. Because of that openness all kinds of articles get submitted. What I find the most wonderful about this article, is not the article itself, but a person willing to put a tough point of view out there, spark conversation and then participate civilly in that conversation. If you believe you could write a better opposite editorial, then this site is perfect for you, because you can! And I would love to hear your point of view as well. We also offer many services to amateur writers to help them improve, from workshops (always free) to free copy editing. I do hope to see you write your first article and I appreciate you reading and contributing comments to The Sacramento Press.

Geoff Samek on "No, Not Everyone Who Lives in Roseville wears Ed Hardy"

2011-08-29T21:01:38Z

Your comment as always is a breath of fresh air, a really fresh voice and idea. Your thoughts on here are, as always, truly unique and never, ever repetitive.

Geoff Samek on "MidLife Gridlife"

2011-08-26T22:32:15Z

I'm just pleased as punch that someone from Rocklin is reading our site! Next step, writing on our site. Perhaps an opinion piece on a suburbanites view of Midtown?

Geoff Samek on "Taste-Testing Sacramento's Po' Boys of Pot: $3 Joints "

2011-08-25T18:54:38Z

Wait now we're mainstream media? Thanks Bill! And I agree I'm not sure I saw this article coming. But, reading it put a smile on my face, at least half out of shock and surprise. Even more interesting since it is well written, well styled, thorough and rather professional.

Geoff Samek on "One year later: Ekstrom remembered with sculpture"

2011-08-25T18:02:25Z

The lede is semantically ambiguous. He was found and presumably died at Sutter's Landing. Here's the link to the story we first reported on last year: http://sacpr.es/1Xj

Geoff Samek on "Maydestone building nears completion"

2011-08-24T23:42:28Z

Ben Ilfeld just pointed out to me an erroneous point in your comment Mr. Powell. Property taxes are paid to the county not to the city. UPDATE: Brandon Darnell pointed out to me that though we pay property taxes to the county, the lion's share of those taxes are passed through to the city and make up a large portion of the general fund. Thanks for the correction Brandon! UPDATE 2: I misquoted Brandon. A small amount of the county's total property taxes go to the city, which constitutes the lion's share of the city's general fund. And yes I make mistakes, or comment rather quickly, the nice thing is that I admit them as transparently as I can. Cheers.

Geoff Samek on "Public comment at Council meeting results in one more map"

2011-08-17T19:27:50Z

Ed I wanted to let you know that I think your photos of this meeting are excellent. Since I couldn't be there, this story is my only link to that night and your pictures help me feel quite immersed in the mood of the evening.

Geoff Samek on "Public comment at Council meeting results in one more map"

2011-08-17T19:15:11Z

When making statements about crime it is probably best to at bare minimum have an authoritative source of information alongside your claims. Beyond that it is still tough to generalize an area with solely statistics, they often don't tell the whole story. Defining a region and then providing an authoritative source for crime statistics about that area will also help take some of the emotion out of your argument and likely make it more palatable to The Sacramento Press community

Geoff Samek on "City Council chooses surprise new redistricting map"

2011-08-10T21:55:24Z

For reference here is a link to the old (i.e. current) redistricting: http://goo.gl/26rKY

Geoff Samek on "Neighbors, developer reach agreement on contentious project"

2011-08-01T16:16:32Z

Modern architecture is a specific style. When referring to the most recent styles in architecture the appropriate term is contemporary.

Geoff Samek on "Co-op Campaign is about Democracy and Human Rights"

2011-07-29T22:35:59Z

Three points. 1) What is the full text from the by-law that you cite? “conducting such other activities as will serve the … educational ... and cultural welfare of the members.” I'm always suspect of the true context of a quote when huge pieces are missing with only ellipsis in their place. Is there a link to the full by-laws? 2) Issues regarding the production and distribution of food, while easily considered political are not the same kind of politics at play as in the Middle East. It is reasonable for a store that sells food to be concerned with how it is produced. 3) Why attempt to make this boycott at such a small scale? Surely huge companies like Walmart and large grocery chains carry far more Israeli products? Also much of Intel's product chip line is developed in Israel. Intel chips are in everything from your TV, to cellphones, to Apple computers, why not boycott those products, which undoubtedly contribute significantly more to Israel's GDP?

Geoff Samek on ""The Greenest Building" Film Showing at Crest Theatre July 25"

2011-07-18T18:51:35Z

I think you buried your lede. Free movie at The Crest! Sounds like a fantastic event.

Geoff Samek on "New coffee bar coming to Seventh and K"

2011-07-15T18:03:14Z

In order to get some of those 24hr fitness people who work out early, it might make sense for them to open earlier than 8am M-F. With a unique offering and smartly targeting people in that vicinity I think this cafe has a good shot, especially if it can survive long enough to see the 700 block redeveloped.

Geoff Samek on "City officials merging plans for arena, transit center"

2011-07-14T19:03:46Z

A question that I haven't heard much is the following: How likely are we to actually build a transit center? Is building the transit center dependent on the California High Speed Rail being completed? If so that's problematic since there is a chance that money will run out for the project before it ever hits Phase 2, where it is expected to come to Sacramento. It's smart to plan for an intermodal transit center only if it's realistic one will actually be completed in the next 20 years.

Geoff Samek on "California Pizza Kitchen to leave, be replaced by pub"

2011-07-12T18:32:54Z

I am happy that if we have to lose a business that in it's place we are getting a local owned and operated one. Whatever the final concept is, I am happy to see business development happening. Here's another thought, how about a Pangea in midtown?

Geoff Samek on "The Garlic Shack is now open"

2011-07-08T23:08:35Z

Glad to see new businesses open, but I would implore the owner to check his Yelp reviews and see that there are serious concerns among the reviewers about his fledgling restaurant. I think many of those suggestions are reasonable and will help keep Garlic Shack around for a long time to come. While there are many suggestions to be made for improvement, I will re-iterate one that I thought was very appropriate especially concerning the quotes about the popularity of beers in the above article. Create a bottle beer menu! You have several great beers to choose from, make it easy for us to choose. We need more places to eat late in this town and I'm glad there's now another choice!

Geoff Samek on "Disclosure yourself, or else"

2011-07-06T23:58:21Z

Thanks Ali! I do like the majority of what is in the SPJ code however I find other parts rather antiquated and of questionable logical foundation.

Disclosure yourself, or else

2011-07-06T22:13:32Z

You know who you are, but when you write for The Sacramento Press, our readers might not.

That’s part of the impetus behind today’s site update concerning disclosures.

We have added a new section to our “write article” page that pokes and prods everyone from staff to community contributors to disclose personal and professional affiliations to anything discussed in stories.

This update goes hand-in-hand with an update to our terms of use policy, which now requires a disclosure in any circumstance where a contributor has a “personal or professional interest in the subject matter of such article.”

The interface is clean and simple and is just a text area that allows you to add a short description of your affiliation with anything in an article. It’s obviously optional if you don’t have personal involvement with the article!

It also saves your last three unique disclosure statements, so if you regularly need to disclose an affiliation, such as public relations professionals, it is one click to pop in a previous disclosure.

Once you add a disclosure, it will show in a consistent way at the bottom of each article and be offset from the article text, as seen in the screenshot below.

Our goal with this new feature is to make all personal affiliations as clear and transparent as possible. When you have more than 1,000 unique contributors to your site, a mark we just passed last month, it requires an enormous amount of transparency to help build trust. We hope that this update is another step in that direction.

Geoff Samek on "Riding Concrete: Skateboarding In California"

2011-06-29T18:26:13Z

It seems so insane that there haven't been more exhibits like this. It has proliferated modern culture so pervasively with only a fraction of the media attention that modern memes/trends get.

Geoff Samek on "Video and audio layouts on The Sacramento Press"

2011-06-03T19:05:39Z

Actually we have a spy network that digs up dirt on 1,000's of Sacramentans and black mails them into writing community news stories for us. We're just hoping the News and Review doesn't uncover our massive scheme anytime soon.

Geoff Samek on "Video and audio layouts on The Sacramento Press"

2011-06-03T18:58:50Z

This conversation and that as the first video makes me laugh. So, totally worth it.

Geoff Samek on "Mobile sandwich shop gets crafty"

2011-06-02T21:08:53Z

Leave town? No more Sacramento for you? If so, where are you off to?

Geoff Samek on "The Culinary Time Machine"

2011-06-01T20:50:59Z

Interesting review. I've been several times and while I can't say it's my favorite restaurant for homy italian comfort food (that honor goes to Vince's in West Sac), I wasn't nearly as perturbed. As a good rule of thumb I like to visit a restaurant 2-3 times before I pass a more permanent judgement on it. I also would love to have heard more of your thoughts on the size of portions, ambience and other sensory experiences of the establishment, especially, as Lindol points out, because there are no photos. Lastly it's worth noting that according to your "About Me" section you are a, "restaurant consultant specializing in…failing concepts." Having said all that I do not wish for a time machine to get my time back, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your review and I look forward to many more.

Geoff Samek on "Design competition to shape Capitol Mall"

2011-05-31T21:06:25Z

I think this is a nice idea. If it works here hopefully it can be used elsewhere for more complex projects and perhaps even projects with more at stake (i.e. The Railyards). How about we put a raised walkway that is lavishly appointed with gardens. There's a cool walkway like this in Paris. You could add small kiosks or shops below it or on it. it could be part of a really cool walkway that connects to the riverfront and bike lanes from surrounding streets.

Geoff Samek on "Burgers and wings spot to take Aura's spot on J Street"

2011-05-09T08:57:02Z

Good to see new voices on the site and thanks for commenting! I appreciate your insight and would love to know, as a new resident, what drew you into living in Midtown? Also if you have any suggestions for the site, it's comment system, or any other feature you think the site could use, please let me know by emailing suggestions@sacramentopress.com.

Geoff Samek on "City mulls new taxi regulations"

2011-05-04T20:52:26Z

At this point with the public comment period over, what can be done to stop this ordinance? I for one see no basic logic that supports this ordinance. I love that I can actually find a taxi in this town, it makes us feel like a "world class" city.

Geoff Samek on "Loose. Foodloose."

2011-05-02T23:19:19Z

It seems that your thumbs down hater posse has been dismantled. Perhaps you wore them down with prolific writing? As usual you have my thumbs up.

Geoff Samek on "Future of Westfield Downtown Plaza in doubt"

2011-04-29T01:32:35Z

Top the mall with housing, add a Trader Joe's or similar grocery store as an anchor and watch the rest fill in with shops. Plus a bunch of new people will move in right there when the 700-800 blocks of K Street get rebuilt replete with new housing.

Geoff Samek on "Man on the Street: What's a sign that it's officially Summer in Sacramento?"

2011-04-29T01:28:53Z

Wow, really? No one said, "shirtless dude," as a typical sign of Sacramento's impending Summer? Seriously?

Geoff Samek on "Beta no more"

2011-04-21T21:56:15Z

Thanks Cdougherty, it was beginning to feel a little Googlesque around here.

Beta no more

2011-04-21T18:39:43Z

It’s been nearly two and half years since we launched The Sacramento Press, and today we released a few changes (more than just the temporary purple color), one of which is removing the beta stamp from our navigation.

What is a beta stamp, you ask? Well, since you can no longer see it on our site, I grabbed this screenshot of what it used to look like.

Beta generally indicates that a company is still working out the kinks in their core product. But we finally are happy to say we feel pretty happy with what we have, so no more beta!

Does this mean we stop working on new features? Absolutely not. We will in fact bring new and increasingly cool features to The Sacramento Press over the course of this year and beyond.

To that point our co-founder and VP of technology Joel Rosenberg has assembled this quick overview of what else will see changed on our site as of today.

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Highlighting the Comments of an Article's Author

An article author's comments will now stand out in the conversation. This allows readers to quickly know when the writer may be providing greater detail, correcting a mistake, or just jumping into the action.

No more "107 Weeks Ago"

We're changing how we show the age of comments and articles in search results and lists. Currently, we show how old an article is in terms of minutes, hours, days, and weeks. Now we'll be removing weeks, adding months and showing the year and month an article or comment was published if it's more than a year old.

Facebook and Twitter links

We now promote our official Facebook and Twitter account at the top of every page.

Curated front page RSS feeds

We're adding RSS feeds for all laid-out front pages (and tag pages). This allows us to have a feed that represents curated content that is changed daily. We can give these feeds to third parties knowing that spammy or offensive articles won't show up and surprise us.

Trimming down RSS entries when things change

When we have to fix a typo in an article or when a user updates his comment, some RSS readers will often add a new entry instead of updating the old one. This change will help RSS software see changes as updates to old entries, not new entries.

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So there you go, lots of new stuff to play with. In the coming weeks, look for even more changes such as video and audio on our homepage and even more exciting features.

Geoff Samek on "Lavender Angels keep the peace in Midtown when drunk subject gets unruly"

2011-04-19T18:46:35Z

I am rarely more proud of this publication than when I see articles and conversations such as these. It's fantastic to see the community participate in an online discussion like this. Glad to see some new voices, great comments, great short article, good job all around!

Geoff Samek on "Best French Fries in Sacramento"

2011-04-18T18:40:05Z

Lots of places make great fries, House touts theirs as excellent, but when I think of experiences in which I really look forward to fries I actually think of L Wine Lounge. And really the fries are only half the story, it's their dipping sauces that make them great.

Geoff Samek on "Best French Fries in Sacramento"

2011-04-18T18:33:18Z

I added one to my waistline last night.

Geoff Samek on "Go Time: Sacramento vs. Anaheim at NBA meeting"

2011-04-14T07:16:13Z

Agreed it's amazing how much intrigue will unfold in the next 24 hours.

Geoff Samek on "Opinion: Open letter to Midtown Business Association, Mayor Johnson, City Council Members and the General Public"

2011-04-02T19:37:48Z

It's also worth noting that the neighborhood, as defined by the city, of Midtown (a.k.a. Winn Park) is not the same as the more informal definition which can include everything from 16th street to 29th street bounded on the north by the railroad tracks and the south by the Capital City Freeway. I believe many of the residents who wrote this article are likely residents of Boulevard Park and Marshall School neighborhoods, colloquially considered midtown.

Geoff Samek on "Popular local eatery closes its doors"

2011-03-30T17:22:09Z

I never had problems parking in that area. It is adjacent to the old ice factory. And while parking is full during the day, the evenings often seemed to be a bit of a ghost town. As for the license I seem to remember drinking there after 10pm as recently as this year. I could be mistaken, but did they ever have the liquor license changed again to allow a normal 2a.m. end of drinking?

Sacpress search, take four

2011-03-17T04:48:45Z

Previously I wrote an article mentioning how search no longer sucked. And while that was true, it wasn’t great either. Yesterday’s improvement to search makes it even more usable.

The biggest difference is that now our search results are displayed in order of relevance, with significant weight given to more recent content, instead of strict chronological order. Chronological order made sense, since, well, we’re a news site and the more current the content, often the more relevant it is. However, sometimes nothing new has been written about what you are searching for, but you still want to find it at the top of your search result. Now we have a balanced mix of relevance and chronology.

We also added exact phrase matching. This means that if you encapsulate your search phrase in quotes, you will only get content that has that exact phrase in it. The nice thing is that most of the time quoting isn’t necessary since we already give lots of value to the order of your search terms.

For a quick visual comparison, check out the screenshots of the searches for strong mayor below.

Notice the difference?

At first glance the searches seem to return identical sets of data, at least for the first two results. But take a closer look.

The number of results for the quoted string is far fewer, 599 versus 3,094. This is because only content that contains the exact phrase “strong mayor” is present. The second search result will have any content that contains the the words “strong” or “mayor” in it, in addition to the content that contain both, even if they are not next to each other.

As usual, please feel free to leave your comments, questions and criticism in the conversation below. Alternatively, you can e-mail me via the newly created suggestions e-mail, suggestions@sacramentopress.com. That email goes directly to me.

Geoff Samek on "Anaheim's economics luring Kings, mayor says"

2011-03-05T06:46:47Z

I also think that if the Kings do leave that this town would be a great place for hockey. The New York Islanders, Atlanta Thrashers and several other teams may be ripe for a move (http://goo.gl/4n8Uf). Negotiating now for a move might be a great place to start if it can accompany a parallel track to a new arena.

Geoff Samek on "Zoo to stay put for the time being"

2011-02-23T21:01:28Z

Has anyone even brought up the possibility of having the zoo move to the Downtown Railyards? Perhaps if it was built in the middle of commercial or mixed use, it would work out better for everyone.

Geoff Samek on "Mayors, governor to negotiate redevelopment"

2011-01-27T22:52:56Z

Here is the link to that survey: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_111MBS.pdf The quoted numbers can be found on the top of page 4.

Geoff Samek on "City rebids track relocation"

2011-01-27T22:43:41Z

What I don't understand is why they started the two overpass bridges scheduled to be done relatively soon if the tracks won't be done for two years. Does that mean that the bridges will just sit there unused until the track relocation is complete? Or will they actually try and connect the bridges in a temporary arrangement with crossing guards?

Geoff Samek on "Captions, credits and continuing changes on Sacpress"

2011-01-19T00:50:55Z

Glad to hear people like the new slideshow. Feel free to give your critiques of it as well.

Captions, credits and continuing changes on Sacpress

2011-01-18T08:55:23Z

Now you can add captions and credits to images that you upload to the site.

Because we have added captions and credits, the interface has changed for adding pictures to the slide show at the top of each story. The interface will allow you to give yourself a photo credit and assign multiple captions at the same time. Captions are optional, but image credits are required.

You can also rearrange your pictures by simply dragging and dropping the rows into the appropriate order. You drag a picture by clicking the gridded dot icon located just to the left of your picture.

In order to display this new information, we had to change the look and feel of the article’s slide show gallery. Captions and credits will appear next to both the small and large versions of your pictures. If you have never played with the large version of the slide show, you can view it simply by clicking on a picture.

Your image credits will show up on pages that are laid out by our editorial department, such as the front page. You may have already noticed these during the past few weeks. They appear when you hover your mouse over any image.

Check out the slide show for this article – there are several screenshots that illustrate these new features.

Please feel free to ask any questions or put any comments in the conversation below or e-mail me directly at feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Geoff Samek on "K Street's 700 block to get entertainment, housing "

2011-01-06T21:41:23Z

My only concern is for the big picture in Sacramento. In addition to this project, Township 9 is underway, the Bridge District is under way, the Docks project is in the works, the entire Railyard project is moving forward slowly and several other downtown housing and retail projects still remain mostly unsold (e.g. L Street Lofts, retail space in parking garage on 28th and N, etc.). Are there plans for a more holistic and concerted effort by the city/county of Sacramento (and West Sacramento for that matter) to attract the many thousands of people from outside the area needed to reside in these new projects?

Geoff Samek on "Kings Conspiracy - Part 1"

2011-01-01T21:08:30Z

So far for the 2010-2011 Kings season average attendance is actually up 150 people a game, not down (December 26th article on page 1A of the Bee by Tony Bizjak titled, "Sacramento Kings lack wins, but attendance is up.").

Geoff Samek on "Fifth and Sixth street bridges nearing completion"

2010-12-03T19:08:20Z

Unfortunately, as punny as that is, I think that's exactly what got the City into this mess, or at least it's part of the reason. They keep bridging funding gaps with short term solutions, now we're in quite a hole.

Geoff Samek on "Chilly weather no concern for 17th Run to Feed the Hungry"

2010-11-29T22:28:10Z

A 5k race means that the race is 5 kilometers long; likewise a 10k race is 10 kilometers long. The name of the race is in fact the distance of the race, simply in metric measure. Wayneowatts has translated the above distances into their nearest equivalent in miles.

Geoff Samek on "Grill stays on at Jim-Denny's "

2010-11-23T20:07:01Z

The actually make a really good veggie burger, but if you are a stickler it is made on the same griddle.

Geoff Samek on "A look inside Sacramento International's Terminal B"

2010-11-14T19:57:52Z

Shooting people over in rockets, now you're thinking!

Geoff Samek on "A look inside Sacramento International's Terminal B"

2010-11-14T03:48:04Z

I'm curious why they chose to go with this train system to move people to the "air side" of the terminal. It seems a little inefficient and not particularly showy.

Geoff Samek on "Sacpress search updated"

2010-11-11T22:26:15Z

Thanks!

Sacpress search updated

2010-11-10T23:40:45Z

Search on our site no longer sucks.

We spent the last few weeks digging up our original search system and revamping it entirely. No longer will you see out-of-date Google search results with duplicate entries. Now you will find custom, up-to-the-minute results parsed into three different types: articles, users and comments.

You’ll also notice that there are now new icons to represent the different content types, and you will find them to be consistent site-wide, not just in the search results.

One other noticeable change is the search box in the navigation bar. Now it is much more visible with a white background and clear in purpose due to the button saying “search” and not just “go.”

All these changes are brought to you by our great tech team, whose newest member, Andy Ford, started only a few weeks ago.

But enough with the explaining, check out some screenshots in the gallery above, or just play with the new search yourself.

Geoff Samek on "A Challenge to Sacramento Artists"

2010-11-08T05:30:22Z

In a sense all artists are self-proclaimed. When one makes art, as a career or a hobby, that act then defines one as an artist. I would also contend that your definition of art as being made with the, " intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions," is not entirely on point. Would every piece of art that hangs in a museum hold true to that strict definition? Perhaps amending it include not just intention but "affecting thought and emotion," would aid the definition. The suggestion that Sacramento use found items to produce art for our city is a lovely suggestion and challenge. Any hostile response to your article is derived from the fact that you end it hurling emotional and hurtful insults at the entire Sacramento art community.

Geoff Samek on "Arena stalled"

2010-10-23T19:15:22Z

I wonder if anyone has ever thought of selling bonds to build a new arena? Perhaps either local municipal bonds or corporate bonds, or even a combination of the two. I admit to having no knowledge of what is required to make that happen, but in principle it seems it might get volunteer community support which is better than taxing and might make this town feel like they have a stake in their sports team again. Anyone with more knowledge have any thoughts?

Geoff Samek on "Tapestri Square resumes, Crystal Creamery stalled"

2010-10-21T18:05:19Z

I often thought that block would become the treasure of Midtown's new developments if they had decided to put a park in the middle of the block for all the homes to share (and maybe the public?).

Geoff Samek on "Cornerstone reopens at Headhunters"

2010-10-10T23:59:11Z

Perhaps area business owners could ease some parking concerns by negotiating a deal to turn the lot adjacent to The Golden Bear into a parking lot and lease spots to several businesses in the area. It may not work, but at least it would be an attempt to solve this type of problem to everyone's satisfaction.

Geoff Samek on "17 candidates attend forum on proposed Arden Arcade city"

2010-09-30T07:30:58Z

What happens in counties where there are no parts of the county that aren't inside a city, such as San Francisco? Are we headed toward a situation like that? And what does that mean for the county's role in governance?

Geoff Samek on "OPINION: Separation Of Church and State in Sacramento?"

2010-08-24T21:57:39Z

Awesome job of following through Mr. Gonzalez. when you find out more you should write a whole new article and put it in this same storyline. it was a fascinating read and I appreciate that you put your opinion in, but still managed to be fair and objective in your treatment of the facts. Often logic and transparency can be mixed with a fair amount of opinion and still be fair and informative. Great job!

Geoff Samek on "Market opens at 17th and Capitol"

2010-08-19T09:45:55Z

Personally I love Grocery Outlets and used to shop at the G-O in Berkeley when I lived there. It was an adventure every time (for better or worse, that part of Berkeley was a little sketchy). I think because this is a franchise it will have a lot more flavor than the corporate Grocery Outlets. Even on the corporate level though, it's a family run business on its 3rd generation and headquartered in nearby Berkeley. Additionally it is competing with other much larger national grocers. To me it is more the scrappy upstart than say, Trader Joe's or Safeway. And even with it there I will still shop at the co-op for organic produce and Corti Bros. for all kinds of amazing stuff. And I'll probably still shop at Safeway and Trader Joe's. I really don't see any negatives to this store's opening, other than perhaps the stomach ache I will get from overloading on steeply discounted candy bars (my favorite grocery outlet pastime).

Geoff Samek on "Sacramento Fire PIO Retiring"

2010-07-15T19:21:41Z

You contributions have been stellar. It's sad to see you leave, but good to hear you've landed at another wonderful job. I look forward to your future posts as much as I have enjoyed your past ones.

Geoff Samek on ""Promenade on K" plan at Shady Lady"

2010-07-09T16:16:47Z

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe if anything Mr. Burg is "promoting" an event for the D&S proposal, which is in fact a *competing* proposal to the David Taylor proposal.

Geoff Samek on "Kirchen Sets Opera House on End."

2010-06-28T04:20:48Z

I fixed the title as well as paragraph spacing for you. If you have problems with your article in the future, please feel free to let us know by emailing support@sacramentopress.com. Congrats on posting your first article!

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-27T21:31:45Z

Naga, indeed they are not the same thing. I appreciate that comment and it is something that was debated internally. Perhaps announcements should have been made separately, it certainly would have allowed the conversation to focus more on our new terms of use.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-27T21:29:17Z

200+ actually! Not only do I think it's a great idea, but you read my mind. A follow-up article will be posted next week, both summarizing this conversation and adding some new ideas. Thanks for a great suggestion.

Geoff Samek on "Editorial: The end of the strong mayor "

2010-06-27T20:42:32Z

That is a good point Gracie, however Mr. West does share who he is in his profile. Also when he has written an actual article and not just a comment, that information was at the top of the article.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-26T23:09:33Z

Thank you both Tony and naga for chiming in on this concern. At this point I think all that can be said on this particular point has been said. Tony, I appreciate your defense of our action and I appreciate your disagreement with it naga. Both opinions have been well heard and will be considered strongly when going forward. If either of you have more thoughts on how to maintain a healthy comment system, I would love hear them in further comments at the end of this conversation section. Thank you both for your input so far, I have very much enjoyed your intellectual sparring.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T21:59:28Z

Cage fights, Jim, now you're cooking with gas. I can't imagine there would be any liability issues, maybe we can start them this weekend. But seriously folks... I really do like the idea of sponsoring public debates on issues, I think it's a great idea.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T21:57:30Z

bbbbmer was a very unique case. I'm not sure if other users if and when we ban them will be made public. It is a distinct possibility. At present we are not planning to go through an retroactively apply the new terms of use to content that was created under the old terms of use. As for whether that comment would be removed under the current TOU, it is very debatable. That comment doesn't actually defame the business as much as speak to a movement that has the same name. If anything the comment is simply off-topic.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T20:42:18Z

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your differing opinion. I know you are on this site because you value it, and though we may not completely agree on this issue I value your input immensely as it will help make this site better, a goal on which I think we can both agree.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T20:30:25Z

Thanks for all the recommendations and ideas. Your comments along with many of the suggestions in this conversation will weigh heavily in how we proceed in improving our site and the commenting system in particular.

Geoff Samek on "Editorial: The end of the strong mayor "

2010-06-25T19:19:59Z

Thank you Mr. West for a careful and considerate reply, it was an interesting read.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T08:37:36Z

We do not currently advertise prices on our site. I have alerted our sales department that you are interested and they should email you with a media kit. We also offer network ad buys across 48 local publications via a product we call SLOAN (Sacramento Local Online Ad Network). You can find pricing in the media kit available at http://sacad.net.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T08:32:45Z

Our tech department's email is not publicly accessible, so I'm not quite sure who you emailed. The quickest way to get a request in regarding your account is to email support@sacramentopress.com, which goes to our operations staff. Please make the request officially via email.

Geoff Samek on "Alley restaurant row stalled"

2010-06-25T08:19:59Z

Fascinating points all around, but please try writing comments without the little jabs at people attached to the end.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T08:17:53Z

Thanks for noticing Tony! It's been quite a long day and my shift doesn't end until 5am. I also want to thank you for your delicate and well reasoned responses to people in this conversation.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T08:16:04Z

Our goal is to never ban anyone. We went to exorbitant lengths to try and get him/her to continue commenting on our site but within the Terms of Use. bbbbmer was explicitly allowed the opportunity to change his/her behavior on over 40 occasions. S/He explicitly declined to comply with our *old* terms of use. I want to be very clear here, bbbbmer was banned for over 40 violations of our *old* terms of use, absolutely *nothing* was applied retroactively. Indeed bbbbmer made very many articulate and thought provoking comments and all of those that didn't violate our terms of use remain active on the site. His remaining comments total well over 1,000.

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T07:07:09Z

If there is a particular site's TOU that you admire?

Geoff Samek on "Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem"

2010-06-25T05:42:22Z

Our policy until now had been to never ban anyone if possible. We have turned some otherwise unruly users into valuable contributors even though we have taken down many of their comments. At nearly 5,000 users, this is the first individual we have banned, so we don't have a policy in place with specific numbers. We likely will develop rough guidelines over time, or perhaps develop a set of specific guidelines as you have asked. As for threats of violence, I think by nature those are more serious. In fact the Supreme Court has ruled that directly inciting violence through speech is not even covered by the 1st amendment, let alone acceptable on our site. I hope that sheds some light on your concerns.