Olympia Express «Cremina» Forum? - Page 2

#11: Post by HB » September 16th, 2023, 3:52 pm

Emmet1937 wrote:I guess I am confused why there can't be a specific "Olympia Cremina" Group in the Lever Machine areas? Moderators please advise and this is very normal request in forums.

I used to frequent a car forum that had a sub-forum for every year and model variation. The owners of that specific year/model appreciated it, but I noticed that there was little crossover discussion since they had "their" forum. That's happened to a lesser degree on this site because we've intentionally kept the number of forums down.

Specifically to your question, if there were a Cremina forum, then why not one for the La Pavoni Europiccola? How about grinders? One for every model made by Kafatek, Niche, Mazzer, Mahlkonig, Compak? And for pump-driven espresso machines? We could justify a dedicated forum for E61 espresso machines and their dozens of variants.

It would be a fair amount of work, but a compromise I've seen on other sites is tagging. With that, you would be able to filter the Levers forum, for example, to only show threads with the #cremina tag. Of course, that's only useful if members/moderators remember to tag correctly.

Gpinch1 wrote:There is a Facebook group dedicated to Creminas

I'm sure there's a Facebook or Reddit group dedicated to just about any subject one can imagine.

September 17th, 2023, 1:43 pm

Emmet1937 wrote:Thank you. I guess I am confused why there can't be a specific "Olympia Cremina" Group in the Lever Machine areas? Moderators please advise and this is very normal request in forums. Thank you kindly to all for your other responses and directions. It would be great to not have to search every time and get 650 posting responses rather join a group and view the most recent posts. Kind regards

Note: personal opinion follows; not reflective of H-B.

FWIW, I personally felt the same when I started browsing coffee forums. I was used to automotive-related forums that were organized by model and variant. There is, however, a key difference in the subject matter, which is the influence of machines on technique.

For example, on a typical automotive forum, everything is technical; there will usually only be a single low-traffic sub-forum where there is any discussion of how to use a car, i.e., how to drive. Any discussions about improving one's driving skills are almost always in the context of track or competition driving. You will not see a discussion on, for example, "How to make a better left turn at a traffic light" at an enthusiast automotive forum.

Discussions are different here. Technique and technology are both important - the forum is about usage, as much as machines. As such, if someone with a Europiccola comes up with a new technique, then I don't want that technique posted in the "Pavoni lever" sub-forum where a Cremina user might miss it. This forum is setup that one won't miss that post (by subscribing to the Tips and Lever forums).

One could say that purely technical discussions of a specific model could be best served by separate forums, but that means that more moderators will be needed ... and yes, one machine-specific forum would eventually mean a gaggle of them, all needing moderation.

Finally, there is history, and associated inertia. The existing structure is a product of history. Would a fresh start look different? Perhaps. Better? Perhaps, perhaps not. Is the existing structure what everyone is used to? Definitely.

#13: Post by **pcdawson** » September 20th, 2023, 9:04 am

A quick search through the forums using the term "User Experience " reveals 13 threads for a variety of specific espresso machines and grinders. Many of these contain over 100 posts. One could simply start a thread titled "Olympia Cremina user experience". If the policy is to discourage these kinds of threads then I guess it makes sense to universally apply this across the site. Personally I'm not on Facebook so don't have access to that particular group.