Slashdot | Managing Mailing Lists If we take mailing list technology as a given, there are still some pieces of advice that I think are required for anyone running a mailing list:

- Always moderate your mailing list. There are too many e-mail worms and other nasty crap that happens via e-mail these days. It's possible to infect hundreds of people instantaneously via an unmoderated mailing list. This stuff can be caught if a human reads every submission.

- Moderate daily. People hate seeing their messages sit in queue for too long.

- Moderate mistakes. One-line "I agree" posts, "fuck you" posts, posts that clearly were not intended for the list, and empty posts should never go to the list.

- Resist the urge to limit discussion. If someone has an opinion that you disagree with, this is exactly the sort of thing that you want to see on your list. Most moderators make the mistake (as they do on Slashdot) that because they disagree with the poster's opinion, it shouldn't be seen by anyone. A healthy disagreement is critical to the survival of any online forum.