Re: Query: What do we call the list?

["Steven J. Owens" <puff -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Folks,

Bev Parks wrote--
>   The best that I can determine from the Internet reference books
>   at hand, the correct way to refer to these is [...]
Sue Stewart added--
>   This would not be a correct "generic" term for a mailing list [...]
Bev Parks replied:
> I agree wholeheartedly! The references I used to dig up the
> LISTSERV data supports that as well. I didn't mention it (though
> I should have) because the original question just talked about
> LISTSERVs.
> [...]
> "Internet mailing list" sounds better and would make more sense
> to most people.
(and yet another user replied that "Internet" isn't accurate because
a LISTSERV actually runs off a BITNET node - although I'd point out
that a machine that is one both BITNET and the Internet is just as
much an Internet node as a BITNET node)

     It seems to me we're overbraining this question.  The original
poster mentioned using a term like "electronic discussion forum"; I
replied privately that, as long as I wasn't discussing the actual
mechanics of how you join and participate and how the mailing list
works, "electronic discussion forum" was more than adequate.

     Likewise, for example, Usenet newsgroups are not bulletin boards,
but if I had to refer to them in passing to a non-internet audience I
might well call them bulletin boards, or call them newsgroups and
briefly define them as bulletin boards distributed across thousands of
Internet machines.

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- netcom -dot- com