The email lists solve some problems that newsgroups, IRC, and chat rooms have.
Email is quick, easy, convienent, and the most accessible.
Not everyone knows how to subscribe to newsgroups, or to enter chat rooms, or even have the access capability to do so. But anyone with an email address can have access to this new list. The age policy will be strictly enforced on the list. Although there is no absolute way to gaurantee that a subscriber is within the proper age range, if it comes to the attention of the list owner that a particular subscriber is over the permitted age then that subscriber will be immediately removed from the list.