List membership, therefore, is at the creator's discretion. Responses generally go to ALL list subscribers. Created by Instructional and Research Computing when you complete and submit an on-line request form . People wishing to be on a particular Listserv must either subscribe to the list or be added by the owner. List membership, therefore, may or may not be at the discretion of the owner, depending on how the list is set up.
Special software operates the list.
At UNCG the software is called ListProcessor. This document covers the basics of using an existing list and should provide enough information for the person who would like to see if a list already exists for a particular topic and join an existing list. Many classes at UNCG are using mailing lists as a means of communication. If your class has a mailing list, your instructor will tell you the listname. Some moderators are very unintrusive while others take great care to condense, consolidate, and clean up messages before posting them.