On mailing lists vs. message boards
By Edward Willis (http://encw.xyz and gopher://encw.xyz)
Published Feb/12/2025

Now, to clarify, by mailing list I mean email discussion list, and not 
advertising mailing list.

I find that message boards, and other pull style communication systems, make me 
a bit anxious. I'm always logging in and checking them so I don't miss 
anything. It is easy to miss something if you don't check at least every day on 
busier forums. Locals.com and other similar social media style private 
communities are particularly bad about this. It makes discovery so difficult, 
what with it having no topics or subforums. Once something is off the front 
page/feed it gets buried. If you're a member of a lot of message boards it 
quickly becomes overwhelming, and you have to cut back on some. I tend to go in 
cycles of activity on the different boards I am a member of, but many boards I 
have dropped entirely.

With mailing lists, everything you're signed up for comes to you, and you can 
read and respond at your own pace. You don't have to regularly visit many 
different websites to stay in the loop.

Not everyone likes or is well served by the same message board software. And 
every new message board might use different software, so you're forced to 
become acquainted with many duplicate systems.

With mailing lists you use the same email client you're already using. Email 
filters can put your different mailing lists into separate folders for easy 
organization, and keep your inbox clean.

On message boards people tend to use handles, but with email they tend to use 
their real names, and using real names tends to mean less toxicity and getting 
to know people better.

Message boards often have a "like" system. I'm sure most people are familiar 
with such systems, but just in case: A like system is one where each message is 
accompanied by a button that increases a visible counter. Each user can press 
the button to "like" the message, and increase the counter. Each user can 
usually only "like" the message once, with the button acting like a toggle, and 
pressing it again usually removes the "like" from the counter. Such systems, I 
have found, tend to result in pettiness, cliques, groupthink, and 
self-censorship.

Message boards do have their positives, of course:

* Users can easily search old content, which reduces the number of duplicate 
threads. Of course, you can host a searchable mailing list archive.

* Content on message boards is indexed by search engines. Good if you're 
looking for exposure to potential new users. Of course, if you have an online 
archive of your mailing list, it'll be indexed as well.

It seems that the positives of a message board can be achieved by a mailing 
list by adding a web archive.

Though it is likely already obvious to all: I prefer mailing lists.

http://mlmmj.org is an easy, light weight mailing list server software.