Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them?
Mailing lists have existed since the early days of email and are still widely used today, even as more sophisticated online forums and social media websites proliferate. The simplicity of mailing lists can be seen as a reason for their endurance, a source of dissatisfaction, and an opportunity for i...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100511 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9462-9835 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0024-5847 |
| _version_ | 1826216752668737536 |
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| author | Ackerman, Mark S. Karger, David R. Zhang, Amy Xian |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Ackerman, Mark S. Karger, David R. Zhang, Amy Xian |
| author_sort | Ackerman, Mark S. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Mailing lists have existed since the early days of email and are still widely used today, even as more sophisticated online forums and social media websites proliferate. The simplicity of mailing lists can be seen as a reason for their endurance, a source of dissatisfaction, and an opportunity for improvement. Using a mixed-method approach, we studied two community mailing lists in depth with interviews and surveys, and surveyed a broader spectrum of 28 lists. We report how members of the different communities use their lists and their goals and desires for them. We explore why members prefer mailing lists to other group communication tools. But we also identify several tensions around mailing list usage that appear to contribute to dissatisfaction with them. We conclude with design implications, discussing ways to alleviate these tensions while preserving mailing lists' appeal. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:52:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/100511 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:52:33Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1005112022-09-29T22:06:56Z Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? Ackerman, Mark S. Karger, David R. Zhang, Amy Xian Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Zhang, Amy Xian Karger, David R. Mailing lists have existed since the early days of email and are still widely used today, even as more sophisticated online forums and social media websites proliferate. The simplicity of mailing lists can be seen as a reason for their endurance, a source of dissatisfaction, and an opportunity for improvement. Using a mixed-method approach, we studied two community mailing lists in depth with interviews and surveys, and surveyed a broader spectrum of 28 lists. We report how members of the different communities use their lists and their goals and desires for them. We explore why members prefer mailing lists to other group communication tools. But we also identify several tensions around mailing list usage that appear to contribute to dissatisfaction with them. We conclude with design implications, discussing ways to alleviate these tensions while preserving mailing lists' appeal. Google (Firm) (Social Interactions Grant) National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship (1122374) 2015-12-27T23:22:20Z 2015-12-27T23:22:20Z 2015-04 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 9781450331456 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100511 Amy X. Zhang, Mark S. Ackerman, and David R. Karger. 2015. Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them?. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4009-4018. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9462-9835 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0024-5847 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702194 Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15) Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Ackerman, Mark S. Karger, David R. Zhang, Amy Xian Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title | Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title_full | Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title_fullStr | Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title_short | Mailing Lists: Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How Can We Fix Them? |
| title_sort | mailing lists why are they still here what s wrong with them and how can we fix them |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100511 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9462-9835 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0024-5847 |
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