Lists

Having not been an avid user of email lists, I have had to rely on feedback from friends in relation to the benefits of them. Whilst all were happy with the fact that topics were sent to you rather than having to go looking for it the biggest complaint was the fact that the listing can quite easily become useless if they go off topic, a problem which I am led to believe happens more often than not, leaving the reader with meaning less banter forward directly to their email. Discussion boards however, are controlled by the entity that set it up, it is relatively topic specific with some control set up to ensure the topics are adhered to, rather than ending up with meaningless banter. The downside to discussion boards are they are extremely slow compared to email lists, a posting can sit for days where as lists are real time.