Site Scope: "Home Baristas"?
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JR_Germantown
- Posts: 417
- Joined: 18 years ago
I think most of us here are home baristas, as one might expect. 
It seems we're dealing more and more frequently with explicitly commercial-use posts (for example: Choosing an Espresso Machine for Coffee Shop. The forum always responds helpfully, and nobody seems to mind that these topics seem out of place on a forum whose name implies that it is for "home baristas". Not to be impolite, but this seems like "noise" to me.
It's pretty common to see "scope creep" when a site gets popular and busy. I run a forum that has accepted "one-off" topics. But commercial use seems more fundamentally different to me. Is this a trend that needs some correction, or do we just accept it as the new normal?
Jack
It seems we're dealing more and more frequently with explicitly commercial-use posts (for example: Choosing an Espresso Machine for Coffee Shop. The forum always responds helpfully, and nobody seems to mind that these topics seem out of place on a forum whose name implies that it is for "home baristas". Not to be impolite, but this seems like "noise" to me. It's pretty common to see "scope creep" when a site gets popular and busy. I run a forum that has accepted "one-off" topics. But commercial use seems more fundamentally different to me. Is this a trend that needs some correction, or do we just accept it as the new normal?
Jack
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HB
- Admin
- Posts: 22021
- Joined: 19 years ago
Even though the site is home-barista.com, there's always been some professional participation. It's dropped off over the years. I don't mind the occasional "commercial" type question since the site's membership includes a lot of very serious amateurs who can offer advice on subjects like cafe equipment. If it becomes common enough, I've already registered pro-barista.com. 
Dan Kehn
