I would like to suggest a Newbie forum.

[SwingT]

I suggest that the sysadmin consider a newbie forum/section.

Such a newbie forum would be pretty much what it implies.

Those wishing to answer questions to newbies would be able to do so there - If someone doesn't have time or inclination to deal with the sort of things newbies do and get into they could just ignore that forum if they like.

Since it has been stated that those sort of posts are a negative factor to some of the top contributors, it would provide such a place and hopefully keep those things out of the other forums.

I've seen it work well other places, might work well here.

[HB]

Wikipedia's External links - Espresso says "Home-Barista.com - Resource for home espresso fanatics". I don't know who added that entry, but I think they accurately captured the target demographic of this site. There are lots of coffee sites and many target a wider range than HB. If anything, I think the "newbie" constituency is overserved, and hence why HB intentionally focuses on the so-called espresso fanatic.

PS: The thread Living in the shadow indirectly touches on this same point, i.e., newbies vs. fanatics.

[SwingT]

Understand.

Just trying to be part of a solution instead of part of a problem

[Randy G.]

If you do a look around the internet, you will find that there are a few good newbie areas. I highly suggest taking a look at coffeegeek.com. Mark Prince has filled the newbie niche quite well with his site. There are numerous forum areas as well as user reviews there. And if I may be so prideful, I can suggest my website as an excellent resource for new users.

There use to be alt.coffee which was, mostly, an excellent area for info, but it was overrun by a spammer and three or four problem children which turned that wonderful, un-moderated forum into a cesspool.

But while those resources existed, there really was not a place for those quite serious about espresso, or at least on their way towards that. There are plenty of other sites where one can ask, "Do I really need a good grinder that costs that much?" On the other hand, there are no other places I know where you can search for "Electron microscope images of coffee grounds," or, "particle size distribution graphs" and get hits.

Dan did a great job at finding and then filling a niche, and it has become the only site of its kind that I have found. The discussion has been made before, and at the risk of starting another "should we change it" thread, I would not change a thing here... at least, nothing major.