Social Aspects of Email Lists

There is surprisingly little written about email lists,  yet they are one of the most successful and longest running institutions on the internet, dating back to at least the 1970s. Maybe it is because they are simple and they work well, and there is not much more to say.  There is a lot more to say and ask though.  What makes a good list?  What makes lists so successful?  How might they evolve?  How come they have lasted so long relatively unchanged? I want to expand on some of these questions and point to areas for more research.

What is an email list?
An email list consists of group of people subscribed to a central server which posts mail out to everyone on the list.  They can be set up in various ways which include:

The broadcast model
This is a one to many structure where a group or an individual prepare a mail which is then distributed to the list.  It is perfect for newsletters, joke lists, one person's writings etc.  These constitute some of the biggest lists on the web with their memberships reaching the hundreds of thousands.

The group model
These lists have a two way structure where people on the list may also post messages to the list. These lists are perfect for discussion groups, families, friends, interest groups etc.  There are moderated and unmoderated group lists.  Moderated lists have the mail monitored by the list moderators who can decide whether a message should be posted on the list or not.
 
I am most interested in group lists and their dynamics, and structures.  I have been a member of several different mailing lists in the last five years and have noticed that each list has its own particular characteristics.

List Dynamics
Group lists can be extremely dynamic and socially rich.  Many people spend significant parts of their lives talking to others in these lists.  Just as in any other social arena different types of behaviours emerge. One role that a person might adopt on a list is that of the lurker.  A lurker is someone who is subscribed to the list and receives the mails but does not participate him/herself.  Alternatively their are spammers who repeatedly post inappropriate posts to a list.

There are other formal roles that might be carried out on lists, such as that of the list moderator or  leader.  On moderated lists the list moderator will read the post and decide whether they should be delivered to the rest of the list.
On an unmoderated list a list leader might employ other methods to ensure a certain quality of discussion on the list.

List leaders can find themselves in quite political situations.  It is not uncommon for lists to split or drastically drop in size when there is a lot of spams (unwanted posts) or flaming (accusationary posts).  The list leader has many different options available to him or her in cases where this happens.  They can threaten to unsubcribe offending members, poll the group for their opinions, or advise others to ignore the offending posts on the principle that they will usually disappear with time, and of course new strategies and variations are created all the time as they are in all arenas of life in groups.

The asynchronous and non-spacial nature of email lists can also create some interesting dynamics.  Discussions happen within certain subject headers. For example at one time their might be one thread of posts about flowers and another about a recent movie.  Whilst these threads might in some sense constitute separate spaces, there is often a prevailing mood on a list. A member of a list may die or someone on the list will be discussing some very personal aspects of their life with others on the list. On some occasions I have felt it inappropriate to start another thread about something unrelated and trivial in comparison.  The contrast is just too stark.  Yet other conversations may be in full flight at the time, and posts may still be coming in from those who haven't downloaded the most recent messages, so it is possible to get some  extremely dynamic and intensely emotional periods on a list that might not occur in other arenas.

Apart from the generalised dynamics and formalised roles of lists and their members, many other relationships and roles are carried out within their confines. The richness of life that occurs through the passing of a few of the 255 ASCII characters is sometimes hard to convince people who have not been in an active group list of.  Some of these behaviours and relationships that are experienced by list members may not even be fully apparent to them.

Sociometry
Sociometry is a term coined by Jacob Moreno, it is the measuring of social relationships.  Lists are inherently sociometric because there is a record of who has spoken to whom, who posts the most, when people post etc.

I tracked the posts of one particularly prolific list observing who started a subject, and who responded.  You can view my sketchy diagram of this here.
By doing this I realised that a lot of information can be list can be seen at a glance that might not be evident whilst just reading the mails. 

Moreno would make similar sociograms of groups structures and analyse different group formations and dynamics within them.  These are powerful tools and might actually make somethings apparent that whilst are being experienced by members of the list might not be explitly acknowledged.

There are sociometric isolates and stars, reciprocating couples etc, etc.  Please refer to the design section where I consider the possiblity of using some of this information to enhance a list.

Links
I have compiled a short list of some of the better articles available on the web pertaining to email lists:

The Hot New Medium is... Email.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.04/es_lists.html
By David S. Bennahum
This article is an introduction to lists and appreciates their potential to communicate to many people at once.  However Bernnahum is mostly concerned with lists in which one person publishes a newsletter and then distributes it to everyone on a list via email.

Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community
http://www.sfgate.com/~tex/innkeeping
Copyright 1992,93,98 by John Coate
An internet classic.

The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/artonlinehost.html By Howard Rheingold
Wearing crazy clothes isn't a compulsory attribute of a good online host but it seems to help Howard Rheingold. In the is document he outlines some of the roles goals and strategies of online hosts.

Psybernet
http://www.psybernet.co.nz
In this site by Walter Logeman there is a wealth of links and information on the sociometry of lists and other internet arenas.

Email List Management Tutorial
http://www.ash.org.au/teachers/natcom/email.htm
A one page summary of email lists and some of the issues surrounding running them.

The lists page
http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html
A list of email lists.