mailing list

n (Communications & Information) a register of names and addresses to which advertising matter, etc, is sent by post or electronic mail

mail′ing list`

n. 1. a list of addresses to which mail, esp. advertisements, can be sent. 2. Computers. a list of e-mail addresses to which messages, usu. on a specific topic, are sent; a discussion group whose messages are distributed through e-mail: I'm on the early American history mailing list on the Internet.Compare list server. [1905–10]

Thesaurus

Noun

mailing list - a list of names and addresses to which advertising material is mailedlist, listing - a database containing an ordered array of items (names or topics)

Translations

邮件发送清单

mailing list

→ 邮件发送清单zhCN

mailing list

[′māl·iŋ ‚list] (communications) A list of users of the Internet or another computer network who all receive copies of electronic mail messages.

mailing list

(messaging)(Often shortened in context to "list") Anelectronic mail address that is an alias (or macro, thoughthat word is never used in this connection) which is expandedby a mail exploder to yield many other e-mail addresses.Some mailing lists are simple "reflectors", redirecting mailsent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filteredby humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication;lists filtered by humans are said to be "moderated".

The term is sometimes used, by extension, for the people whoreceive e-mail sent to such an address.

Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hackerinteraction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet,having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANETconnections. They are often used for privateinformation-sharing on topics that would be too specialisedfor or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Though someof these maintain almost purely technical content (such as theInternet Engineering Task Force mailing list), others (likethe "sf-lovers" list maintained for many years by Saul Jaffe)are recreational, and many are purely social. Perhaps themost infamous of the social lists was the eccentric bandykindistribution; its latter-day progeny, lectroids andtanstaafl, still include a number of the oddest and mostinteresting people in hackerdom.

Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don'ttie up a significant amount of machine resources (until theyget very large, at which point they can become interestingtorture tests for mail software). Thus, they are oftencreated temporarily by working groups, the members of whichcan then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meetface-to-face.

There are several programs to automate mailing listmaintenance, e.g. Listserv, Listproc, Majordomo.

Requests to subscribe to, or leave, a mailing list shouldALWAYS be sent to the list's "-request" address (e.g.ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us for the IETF mailing list).This prevents them being sent to all recipients of the listand ensures that they reach the maintainer of the list, whomay not actually read the list.

mailing list

mailing list

mail′ing list`

mailing list

mailing list

mailing list

mailing list

mailing list

Words related to mailing list

noun a list of names and addresses to which advertising material is mailed

Related Words