FLAG - Board: Mailing List & News Feed

What? Why? Which?

FLAG offers both a Mailing List and News Feed. What are they and why would you want to have either (or both)?

Mailing or Electronic Distribution Lists (sent via ListServ) are two-way. Every subscriber can send messages to the list, so this could be used for exchanges (which is why they are also called Discussion List). For example, you want to find out who goes to X conference and could give you a ride-- you send to the list and recipients can reply to you. List enrollment is not automatic, it needs to be approved and set-up by the list administrator. (This is simply so that unauthorized and unwanted parties cannot subscribe and then post to the list; this is a security and spam avoidance precaution). However, list members decide which messages to read or delete, and they can un-subscribe themselves.

News Feeds (using RSS XML format, but this is irrelevant here) are one-way (like a broadcast): FLAG sends items, subscribers receive them, end of story. If you are primarily interested in obtaining official news, alerts, reminders, etc. then a feed is what you want. The beauty is that the user fully controls his/her subscription (enrollment, frequency of messages, suspension, discontinuation, etc.). If you have not worked with feeds before you may want to give it a try. More and more sites offer feeds and it is useful to be familiar with this type of service.

For further details and to subscribe visit NewsFeed and/or Mailing List.

Please notify others who might want to subscribe either.