Talk:Mailing list

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I am surprized by the statement: > When similar or identical material is sent out to all subscribers on a mailing-list, > it is often referred to as a mailshot.

I do not think this term is widely used in the US. Google hits for it seem to be in the UK so maybe the above sentence could be modified to say "in the UK" (if indeed that is true.) Fred, Communications for Justice http://justcomm.org

I've never heard anyone say "mailshot". "mail drop" is better term. Joe 02:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] remove redundant sentence?

Why use; "Unscrupulous renters may attempt to bypass salts by renting several lists and merging them to find the common, valid addresses." I suspect that any legitimate broker will 'salt' (or 'seed') common salts across lists similarly to different salts per list. Is there a need to outsmart the reader? Does it add meaning to the paragraph, article or is maybe just a fun stub? I'm a little concerned that it demeans the industry. There is also the paragraph inserted in the 'Fictitious entry' entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alanlevin (talk • contribs) 21:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Move this content?

Should this page even exist? If nobody objects, I suggest we merge this content into the Electronic mailing list page.

Any thoughts?

I agree that almost all of the content can be merged. Nonetheless, since the term "mailing list" applies to snail mail as well, I believe that this page should continue to exist, even if only as a disambig. Thanks. Doctor Whom 15:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, mailing list is a more common term. Joe 01:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the page should be merged but the other way round ie. there is only a page called mailing lists and not one called electronic mailing lists cyberjacob 16:24, 11 Febuary 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.70.79 (talk)

The National Mail Order Association suggests the classification be: "Mailing Lists." This is the main category. You would then have different kinds of mailing lists, postal and email. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.171.175 (talk) 15:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking feedback on Google Groups article

Hello. I wrote an article about a related topic, Google Groups. As a new Wikipedia writer, I would appreciate any feedback on my article. Please help me by posting your feedback at the Wikipedia:Article Feedback Desk. If you wrote an article and are seeking feedback on it, please post your article at the Article Feedback Desk as well. If you could suggest better ways for me to seek feedback on my article, do leave a note at my talk page. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two types of mailing lists

The second paragraph of the article: At least two quite different types of mailing lists can be defined: the first one is closer to the literal sense, where a "mailing list" of people is used as a recipient for newsletters, periodicals or advertising. Traditionally this was done through the postal system, but with the rise of e-mail, the electronic mailing list became popular.

I find this paragraph unclear. Is the electronic mailing list supposed to be the second type of mailing list? The paragraph looks like the electronic mailing list is part of the first type, which has traditionally used the postal system. But then, what is the second type? I suggest briefly naming the two types immediately after the colon, and then describing them in more detail in subsequent sentences. 213.216.199.10 06:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mailing Lists Search Engine

This article is on mailing lists. Don't you think it would be useful to provide the readers with a tool to research all of the available mailing lists available? We have compiled an index of virtually all of the mailing lists available from over 1,000 vendors. We don't sell any mailing lists. However, we do provide a free mailing list search tool that allows the user to search all these lists from all these vendors. As far as I know, nobody else provides a resource like this. I've tried three or four times to include a link to this tool in the article and it keeps getting removed because people think it is spam. It's not. I welcome your feedback. Joe Pych 03:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but this link has been repeatedly removed by various people, indicating that consensus is that it is not useful on Wikipedia. I also looked at this website, and dont feel it is appropriate, as the search tool is not exhaustive, and is a free service to promote nextmark products (not a problem) and sell mailing lists (a bit troubling). At the end of the day, we dont promote business on Wikipedia; we provide information so that a user can make effective use of their favourite search engine to find the business they need.
Also, your account is a single purpose account, which usually indicates your "improvements" have a conflict of interest, which is strongly discouraged here. John Vandenberg 03:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the search tool is very comprehensive with more than 50,000 lists indexed. In fact, it may be the only exhaustive search tool currently available. We don't sell any lists. All the lists indexed in the database are from other independent list companies who sell the lists. We don't get a piece of the sale. It is free for these companies to post their listings. How can I convince you this is a good thing? Don't you think people reading about this topic of mailing lists would like to know how to find mailing lists? Sorry if I am making newbie mistakes, but I think this tool can add value to this article. Joe Pych 23:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Joe, I subscribe to four separate discussion and announcement lists regarding mountaineering and alpine sports. As a test, I searched for "alpine" at your search tool. The one result I got back was SURVEY! OPT IN EMAIL CIGAR AND CIGARETTE SMOKERS. Hardly a scientific test, but it speaks both to the comprehensiveness of your database, and the "non-commercial" offering of your site.
You are correct, that's hardly a scientific test -- what was your expected result? I was curious, so I ran the same search and got 8 results. SURVEY! OPT IN EMAIL CIGAR AND CIGARETTE SMOKERS was listed 7th. When viewing the data card, I discovered there is a cigarette brand called Alpine -- that's why it came up in your result. Maybe you should try some other searches that are more realistic. I think you will find the database is the most comprehensive available. Joe Pych 17:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
If your list search engine deserves mention, than create an article for it. Nobody will object to relevant wikilinks. The policies and procedures for page deletion allow for better discussion and voting than the ones for addition/removal of external links.  ◉ ghoti 02:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. Joe Pych 17:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Joe, please do not add the link again; otherwise the site nextmark.com can be banned. You are pushing a website because your list of contributions to Wikipedia have only been to keep adding the same link back in, against consensus, which amounts to vandalism. Please realise that lists.nextmark.com is barely even relevant on this article; it facilitates direct marketing by putting people in touch with a list broker. John Vandenberg 16:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
So, you are saying that a searchable directory of mailing lists is not relevant to an article on mailing lists? If that's the consensus of the experts on this topic, then I am amazed. I was truly trying to add some value to this article -- I thought readers would like to know how to find a mailing list. Without a link to a specialized directory (NextMark's or othewise), the reader would not have ready access to information on mailing lists. We've spent many years compiling and refining our directory of mailing lists from over 1,000 sources and recently made it publically available on the NextMark website. It would be a shame for this article to not include a link to such a reference. Perhaps the experts on the topic can contribute a link to a better reference. Joe Pych 17:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Most mailing lists do not want to be found by your clients, just like most people on List of billionaires (2007) would not like a link to a "searchable directory of relatives of billionaires". People like you cause the death of mailing lists. Erik Warmelink 21:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Your tool is hardly complete. In fact, it appears you are little more than a list broker spamming Wikipedia. I strongly doubt that you've spent years compiling anything and, as for a link to a better resource, the industry standard resource for mailing lists is Standard Rate and Data Service, SRDS.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drauckerr (talk • contribs) 04:16, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Exchange this page with electronic mailing list

Most links to this page are referred from content where the term mailing list is used in its common meaning of electronic mailing list. I propose to

  • rename this page to Snail mail mailing list or similar,
  • rename Electronic mailing list to Mailing list
  • redirect Electronic mailing list to Mailing list,
  • add a reference to Snail mail mailing list or whatever we called it, saying that for surface mail there is a separate page,
  • also the concept of announce-only mailing list should be mentioned, referring to Newsletter.

ale (talk) 10:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Electronic mailing list

User:16@r added a tag to merge this article with Electronic mailing list. However, looking over the page history, it appears that this article was deliberately split because non-electronic mailing lists should have their own article. I have not read either article carefully, so maybe there needs to be cleanup/separation of these articles, or this distinction is no longer needed. Wrs1864 (talk) 11:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The arctile needs editing, but not merging

It would seem to make the most sense to reword the "two different types" paragraph to include a reference to the Electronic Mailing List article. This one could/should then be edited to focus more on the more traditional (physical) mailing lists.

Of course, one could make this article simply a "fork" that pointed to Electronic and Postal Mailing List articles. They are very different subjects, with very little overlap.

Mmbcastle (talk) 16:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

A disambiguation page would be better than the current mess.

The reason I proposed to swap names is that looking at the What links here tool, one prevalently finds references to electronic mailing lists. Obviously, the guys who edited those pages didn't check the link. It seems hard to explain to each one of them that it is necessary to spell "electronic", when they feel nearly rhetorical to just specify "mailing": I, for one, subscribed to various (mailing) lists but have seen no electrons yet ;-) ale (talk) 16:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)