One thing that's new for me on this Exchange, though, is to have found myself harassed by a commenter who decided to doubt the facts of my post really without much of a purpose. This commenter decided to be overly skeptical over my report of a coffee maker that a mostly plastic boiling pot (it's easy to verify that appliances like this exist). It's strange behavior I've never experienced on other Exchanges. Skepticism abounds, but usually not that kind of naked trolling.
I've reviewed the deleted comments on your post but I've come to a different conclusion. I think that other user was just confused about using plastic in an appliance that heats water. They left one comment which primary purpose to me seems to be to request information which was not included in your question at the time. For reference, this was the comment:
Which part exactly was made from plastic and which product did you buy? I find it hard to believe that you can buy a device which basically heats water inside a plastic container where the plastic is in contact with the water. Also, it would be great if you could attach some pictures to your question for clarification.
If anything, the above comment was met with a harsh response that assumed the comment intended to be patronizing when it seems (to me) to be a request for further information primarily.
In situations like this, I recommend assuming good faith unless there's clear evidence not to. In this case, I'd say that evidence was lacking and any bad vibe you got from this initial interaction could be written up to different styles of communication.
Secondly, I then found myself getting lectured by a moderator about the "subjectivity" of my question. It's insulting, frankly. There's little subjective about a quest for an electric Turkish Coffee maker without a plastic boiling pot. I actually think it's an important question for those who care about coffee, especially Turkish coffee.
The issue here isn't solely about subjectivity. That's just one of the reasons why product recommendation are off-topic, other reasons are given in this meta question: 'Are product recommendations on-topic?'.
That's not to say that the spirit of your question is off-topic, it just has to be asked in a way that focuses on the technical aspect rather than the commercial one.
I can see how this can come across as a little insulting. I think that's a quirk of the Q&A format and community rules that force users to write questions from a certain perspective. Those community rules are in place intentionally.
For example, shopping questions are off-topic because they can be very localized and specific without being relevant to a lot of people. Instead, there are many aspects to shopping questions that can be phrased in general terms so that they become more relevant to everyone in a specific category of product.
I don't know to what extent this applies to Turkish coffee makers, but I can give an example for espresso machines. Let's say you're interested in temperature stability in espresso machines, then two aspects to look for are:
- single boiler vs dual boiler (or maybe even one without a boiler)
- PID or no PID
Those aspects are pretty much universal and users could make an informed decision if they know what to look for regarding those terms.
On the other hand, if they asked which machine offers the best temperature stability then the answers could skip the technical part and recommend specific machines. That might be good for most users in the next few years, but after some time those machines could be phased out or they may only be available in specific markets. As such, we've found that it's the technical knowledge that most useful to have on our site.
