What is a mailing list?

2019-10-08

In short, it is a collection of receivers, which can be expressed as an email address. If you send an email to this address, this address will help you forward it to other users. Essentially, it is one to many.

This article is migrated from the old blog. The original link is https://lookas2001.com/%e4%bb%80%e4%b9%88%e6%98%af%e9%82%ae%e4%bb%b6%e5%88%97%e8%a1%a8%ef%bc%88mailing -list%ef%bc%89%ef%bc%9f/

This is an answer to the question of Zhihu, What is mailing list?

Compared with cc and secret copying, each recipient needs to be written to the email header. This list can be dynamically changed. New recipients can tell the mailing list through the web page or other ways that they are willing to receive the email sent to this mailing list, and they can also quit.

Please distinguish the services provided by major mail providers, such as QQ group mail and the so-called subscription list. The mailing list is platform independent. The mailing list service provider does not have to be under the same service provider as the sender and receiver, and the mailing list should use a common email address identifier (such as [email protected] ）, should not be identified by QQ number or something.

The mailing list can be used as a message subscription or a community. The specific example is that various promotional messages you receive can be regarded as a mailing list to some extent. In addition, large open source communities abroad generally use mailing lists as their communication tools.

Compared with BBS and other online forums, mailing lists are more troublesome, less real-time (minute level, second level compared with IM instant messaging), higher learning costs, and more difficult to review (not bad, mailing lists are not a safe information exchange tool for review) because of its decentralized characteristics (everyone can be used as mailing lists), It has not been popularized in China (there are few public mailing list service providers in China).

In fact, the mailing list is quite valuable. It does not bind to any platform, which means that as long as you have an account with a reputable email service provider, you can build a group to people from any service provider anywhere in the world. Unlike WeChat, you can't group with QQ users. And because there is a certain threshold for sending emails, people tend to use formal style, and the efficiency of discussion style will be slightly higher.