Whats the advantage of mailing lists over forums?

[Red Squirrel]

I sometimes see organizations such as a site for an open source software have a mailing list and not a forum, why not have a forum, its easier to maintain, its easier to use, and easier to find, so more people can join. (ex: from google searches). Also, once you join a mailing list, then you get bombarded with email and can't really do anything about it at that point, since theres no central management to where the mail is coming from, as it is from all users that are in. To me, this is just a big invitation for spammers to harvest email addresses.

Any reason why mail lists are used over forums? I can see maybe for a underground hacker/warez community but for something completely legal, I just don't see the benefit.

 

[Rastus]

These mailing lists usually predate the web as we know it. They have very large populations that have gotten used to that format, so they stick with it.

 

[RossMAN]

I prefer forums structure and organization vs thousands of e-mails in a mailing list.

 

[Rip the Jacker]

I hate mailing lists. Good thing I started using the internet around the time forums such as PHPBB were in use. I don't understand how the hell some people can use them. It's a waste of time clicking through all those messages.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Rastus
These mailing lists usually predate the web as we know it. They have very large populations that have gotten used to that format, so they stick with it.

Not necessarily, I recently set up a few mailing lists.

Sometimes e-mail is just easier to use than forums. It all depends on the subject at hand.

 

[mugs]

The main advantage of mailing lists is that the content comes to YOU, you don't have to go to IT. If you don't like getting multiple e-mails, mailing list software usually has a digest mode that you can use.

Mailing lists are for the most part a relic of the old Internet (just like Usenet, other than the binaries groups), but they still have some purposes. I have a mailing list for a group of my friends from college for instance. It beats reply all, that's for sure.