I would just like to say that any new mailing list should archive its messages so that they can be read through the Web. Back when our primary means of communication was the newsgroup, anyone could browse through the discussions at their leisure. This became impossible when we switched to unarchived mailing lists. Since the demise of the newsgroup, it became necessary, in practice, for any college quiz bowl organization to have somebody monitoring the mailing lists. Since few people have the patience for this, the discussions on qb_at_iastate were dominated by a small group of hardcore players and coaches. Back when we had the newsgroup, if you saw a thread that you knew would be of interest to another player, you could tell them and they could jump in and contribute to the discussion. This became far more difficult with the unarchived mailing list. As for practical alternatives, the shortcomings of the Yahoo! club have already been noted. Some other quiz bowl subgroups (qb-canada, qb-chat, qb-sports, qb-women) have been set up on egroups.com. This host offers several advantages: - messages can be read either through e-mail or through the Web (each member's choice); - all messages are archived on the Web, and the archive is even searchable, unlike the Yahoo message board; - e-mail addresses are hidden on the Web archive; - the Web archive can be set up so that users have to join the group before being able to read it. On the down side, all egroups users are required to register with their date of birth, gender and postal code. The lists can be moderated, but I don't know if it is possible for the moderator to edit individual messages as R. has done on the iastate lists.
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