"Mailing list membership is a must for anyone who works with
complicated computer technology, such as a programming language, a
server, or a professional software package. On popular mailing lists
for difficult topics, such as Linux distributions, messages stream in
at every hour of the day and night.
"How many messages on these lists get satisfactory answers? How long
does it take to resolve the questions? These are just two of the
simpler ways to measure a mailing list's effectiveness (we will
encounter others as we proceed)..."