More of this Feature • Part 1: Order to the Chaos • Part 2: Moderated vs Anarchic • Part 4: Open vs Closed • Part 5: Individual-Message vs Digest

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Everybody Can Discuss

Marina's lang-dang list was most certainly a discussion list, one that deserved that name: long threads of thesis and counter-thesis, followed by a surprising yet necessary syn-thesis, generally dialectics in action were sparked by the mere existence of a forum to discuss "la langue dangereuse" (dangerous language).

On a discussion list, basically everybody can respond to a posting by some other member of the group; if the list is moderated, the reply has to go past the critical eyes of the moderator, but still everybody is -- in principle -- free to voice their opinion.

Only Few Announce

Since so much material had appeared on the lang-dang list, Marine decided to set up a Web site about dangerous language. From time to time, she would update one or the other page. She felt that it would be nice to have a way to inform interested people when this happened.

So Marina created an announcement mailing list. Everybody could subscribe to the lang-dang-ding but only Marina was allowed to post to it. She sent a message to this list whenever she had worked on the Web site; the mail was distributed to the people on the list who would then visit the site and check the updates to it.

The site grew and soon, not only Marina was working on it but one of her friends and colleagues changed its content as well. Consequently, Marina gave her permission to post to the lang-dang-ding mailing list whenever she had added new material to the site.

As you have certainly noticed an announcement list is a bit like a moderated mailing list where the criterion which messages pass the moderator is their origin; it is a one-way mailing list.

Summary

While everybody can post to a discussion list, only a limited set of people are allowed to send mail through a announcement list to the list members. The latter type is most often used for delivering news and announcements, hence its name.

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