Electronic Mailing Lists

Introduction

An electronic mailing list or email list is a special use of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to its members or customers, but typically refers to four things:

  • a list of email addresses,
  • the people ("subscribers") receiving mail at those addresses,
  • the publications (email messages) sent to those addresses, and
  • a reflector, which is a single email address that, when designated as the recipient of a message, will send a copy of that message to all of the subscribers.

Notes

  1. CSE typically manages small electronic mailing lists (<= ~25 subscribers) via email aliases.
  2. CSE typically manages large electronic mailing lists (~25+ subscribers) via LISTSERVs.
  3. CSE has managed mass emails to alumni via locally-written Perl scripts and CSE's in-house SMTP server.

References

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mailing_list