mailing list
     n : a list of names and addresses to which advertising material
         is mailed
Source: WordNet® 2.0

mailing list n. (often shortened in context to `list') 1. An {email}
   address that is an alias (or {macro}, though that word is never used in
   this connection) for many other email addresses. Some mailing lists are
   simple `reflectors', redirecting mail sent to them to the list of
   recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees
   of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be `moderated'.
   2. The people who receive your email when you send it to such an
   address.

   Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction,
   along with {Usenet}. They predate Usenet, having originated with the
   first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for private
   information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized for or
   inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Though some of these maintain
   almost purely technical content (such as the Internet Engineering Task
   Force mailing list), others (like the `sf-lovers' list maintained for
   many years by Saul Jaffe) are recreational, and many are purely social.
   Perhaps the most infamous of the social lists was the eccentric bandykin
   distribution; its latter-day progeny, lectroids and tanstaafl, still
   include a number of the oddest and most interesting people in hackerdom.

   Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a
   significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at
   which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail
   software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups,
   the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever
   needing to meet face-to-face. Much of the material in this lexicon was
   criticized and polished on just such a mailing list (called
   `jargon-friends'), which included all the co-authors of Steele-1983.


Source: The Jargon File