Let's take a look at these four options to create community on your Website. Email Discussion Lists Email Discussion Lists offer a very democratic and free-form kind of community with very little maintenance or control required. Usually, any subscriber can send a message a single email address that is automatically forwarded to all of the list subscribers. These lists can include a handful of people or thousands of people. Subscriptions to these lists can grow like a virus.
Lists can either grow ten-fold in a week or die in a week by word of mouth.
Some lists broadcast each new email message to all subscribers. The largest Discussions Lists must be moderated. A Discussion List this size must be moderated to prevent each subscriber being bombarded with hundreds of list emails per day. An editor must read incoming emails and choose to package and forward the ones that add value to the list. The downside of Email Discussion Lists is their chaotic nature.