Module 2 Tasks - Other Infosphere Comunications

• What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?

Relevancy/Usefulness of information provided
I think in comparing email lists to discussion boards the primary difference ( and major pro in my opinion for discussion boards ) is the interactivity. With email lists its true that you can subscribe to topics that you are interested in, but for each topic there is often a diverse range of discussion to be had, not all of which you will be particularly interested in, yet all are distributed as part of that list. I quite often find on email lists, that if I receive an email once a week, I may only come across a small 'snippet' of information that interests me say once a month. With discussion boards, I can visit narrow down my search not only to a specific topic but to a specific thread within a topic quickly finding me the required information.

Accurateness/Verifiability of the information provided
Quite often the information in email lists I have subscribed to are prepared by 'experts' in the field and come from one source, which makes it easier to verify. Discussion boards contain the opinions of a broad range of people on one particular thread, picking out the relevant/reliable sources of information can be a little more difficult.

• Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

Searching for Technical/bug fixes
I'm also quite busy and find that receiving weekly email lists from multiple services is info overload. I need to scan these just in case there is something relevant to me, which takes time. I find with discussion boards I can narrow this down a lot faster. I must admit as a techie I spend a lot of times in forums looking for answers to those weird and wonderful issues we encounter on a daily basis, email lists just would not provide me with the information in a timely or focused fashion. Quite often you don't need to wait for answer as someone else has already asked the question before you!

Tech/Security Alerts
There are email lists that are the exception to this rule (for example) tech alerts and security updates, and in this case email lists definitely have the advantage as they can be issued as soon as the problem arises. It might be disastrous if you did not find out about these things until you visited the appropriate discussion board!