Mailing List

During the early 1990s, online fandom spread out from newsgroups to include mailing lists, which allowed for fast, easy e-mail communication.
From a mid-1990s Media Monitor: 
==General Overview==
Other than reflector lists (where list members were bcc'd on every email that came in to the list), the earliest mailing lists were mainly restricted to university or private servers. This limited list ownership to those who had access to those servers, and as a result, list-based fandoms tended to be very centralized, with limited places to communicate.
To speed up and manage a mailing list, it was used LISTSERV a electronic mailing list software, which allowed the sender to send an email to the list, which was later transparently sends it on to the addresses of the subscribers to the list.LISTSERV - Wikipedia Article Some lists were multi-fandom, such as the first slash list, Virgule, which existed to give slash fans (a minority in online media fandom at the time) a place to talk.
However, most were single-fandom. There was usually a main discussion list for show discussion — for instance, HIGHLA-LHIGHLA-L for Highlander and ForKNI-LForKNI-L for Forever Knight. There might also be a fiction list—usually gen-only like FKFIC-L,FKFIC-L or with specific posting rules about posting slash and gen fic such as HLFIC-L.HLFIC-L Later, separate erotica fiction lists (het, slash, or both) were created to give people a forum for their more adult stories: examples include the Sentinel lists SXF (slash and adult het) and Senfic (gen) and the due South lists DSX (slash) and DIEF (gen).
In 1997, ONElist was formed, making it possible for anyone to create a mailing list. Over the next few years, several similar services (Coollist, eGroups, Topica) sprang up. Fandom took full advantage, with new lists for shows that hadn't had any lists at all before, and more specialized lists — for pairings, fiction kinks, etc. – for fandoms that had been centralized.
In 1999 ONElist and eGroups merged, and in 2000, Yahoo! bought eGroups and formed Yahoo! Groups, where many fannish lists wound up by default. These "group" lists include a searchable web-based archive of all posts and places to share uploaded files.
While reflector lists have largely gone out of fashion, active mailing lists currently still exist for hundreds of fandoms across private servers, university servers, and services such as Yahoo!Groups.
Mailing lists, like Yahoo Groups, allowed fans to create a more customized and controlled fandom experience. This had both positive and negative impact on fandom.
However, starting in the early 2000s, much of media fandom began migrating to blogging platforms such as LiveJournal and diaryland, prompting many to feel that the era of the mailing list was over:
==The Difference Between a Mailing List and a Newsgroup==
In 2000, anneinchicago explained at alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated the difference between a newsgroup and a mailing list: 
==Some Technical Information==
For more general information regarding some technical aspects of an early mailing list, see , a link at the Marcus Cole Estrogen Brigade (1996).
==Fan Comments==
=== "A RANT: THE TROUBLE WITH MAILING COMMENTS..." (1994)===
From a slash [[apazine]:
=== "About LJ & Mailing Lists" (2005)===
From FCA-L:
=== "Tales of Fandom Past" (2012)===
At the end of March 2012, Arduinna posted a three-part meta essay for the Meta Month of March which described her experience during mailing list days. The first post began: 
The first post described what it was like on dialup, signal-to-noise ratio / bandwidth and storage: 
The second post described how one went about finding fandom in those days, links pages such as Fan Fiction on the Net and recs pages, where and how fans were talking (newsgroups, mailing lists, irc), and where and how fans found fic (primarily on archives.) That post also reminisced about the monofannish / multifannish spectrum. She writes: 
The third post described mailing lists themselves: 
That third post also talks about the explosion of mailing lists by 2000 which were: 
==Additional Reading/Meta==
* :Category:Mailing Lists
* 
* Mailing lists and Archives and Usenet..., discussion at alt.tv.x-files.creative, June 29, 1997
*Christmas Wish List For The Mailing List - a satirical Christmas gift list for the creation of the perfect mailing list
*New Slash Lists - another satirical look at the creation of fandom specific mailing lists in the mid 1990s
* We are family. by The Divine Adoratrice (August 8, 1999)
* Things you should never, ever do on a mailing list (2001?)
*LiveJournal vs. the mailing list; reference link; Wayback at fanthropology (2006) 
*Fandom 1994-2000-ish, by Arduinna (March 31, 2012)
* Memories by vass (April 2, 2012)
* post; archive link, ang, discussing how not everyone was comfortable with mailing list culture (April 5, 2012) 
* , some stars, about archives and slow downloads (April 2, 2012)
* fannish history; archive link, jena (April 3, 2012) 
* , pearwaldorf, finding fandom via AOL in 1995 (April 5, 2012)
== References ==
Category:Discussion
Category:Fiction Writing
 Mailing List