1) Mail list - a collection of names and addresses used by an individual to send material to multiple recipients.

2) Mail list archive – a collection of emails sent to the mail list over a time period in the past.

3) Email – in the context of this research it’s an email sent to the mail list.

4) Subscriber – a mail list reader

5) Contributor – a subscriber who sent at least one email to the mail list.

6) Thread (or topic, or conversation) – a collection of emails with the same subject. Each thread is started by one of the contributors who sent the very first (oldest) email in the thread.

7) Traffic – all emails in all threads started by a contributor.

8) Audience – all contributors participated in the threads started by a contributor.

So what are we interested in? Where’s the cool stuff? Let’s start with some observations. What do contributors do?

1) Contributors send emails

2) Contributors start threads, which in turn implies more traffic

3) Contributors join threads started by other contributors

4) Contributors use a certain vocabulary