Moderated - Un-moderated Lists
Generally, you will run into two types of lists - moderated and un-moderated.
A moderated list is managed by an individual who examines the messages before they're distributed to the group. The moderator's goal is not so much censorship, but to weed out messages that are not relevant to the subject.
Moderated mailing lists contain considerably less rubbish or useless dross. Depending on the editing capabilities of the list moderator, some of these are of very useful.
Un-moderated lists, on the other hand, distribute copies of everything that is posted to the group. Most mailing lists fall into this category simply because there are few people who can afford to devote the time and patience to cull through the many messages.
Unmoderated lists, however, can suffer from messages being sent to the group that sometimes wander outside the subject being discussed.
Digests
Frequently, a very busy mailing list will also have a digest available for members
to request instead of the regular list. A digest is the compilation of all the
messages that are received to the group sent out in one document.
For those who prefer not to be bothered with a bunch of email messages on a daily basis should consider subscribing to the digest if one is available.
You'll get the same messages. They'll just be packed into one email message instead of a bunch of little, individual ones.
Administration
For mailing lists to work there needs to be some sort of way to distribute the
messages. One way is to have an individual manually send out the list traffic.
Another, and the most common, is to have a computer (automated) manage the list.
Because a human being is actually in charge of a manually administered list it usually takes a bit more time to get subscribed to the list and to get messages sent out. (Human beings do have something called a life.) Lists maintained by a computer, however, can respond very rapidly to your requests.
Automated lists are controlled by one of three popular software applications:listserv, listproc and majordomo.
Differences in the way these programs handle mailing list management is not applicable to this chapter. (Technical details can be very dull.) What is important, though, is how you go about posting your messages to the different systems.