I realize that we are all (me included!) more apt to use the drei96
mailing list than the newsgroup right now, by habit.
But what is the advantage of a newsgroup over a mailing list?
When each of us mails to drei96, we each get our own individual copy
of that email message. When someone posts a message to the drei
newsgroup, ONE copy of that message gets put in an accessible place
on a dimacs machine AND it stays there! When you or I read it, we
tick it off as to whether reading once was enough and we never want to
see it again, or whether we want to read it again next time we log in or ....
OR we each have the run to make our own personal copy, if we wish.
If you wish to respond to a message posted on the newgroup, you have a
similar choice: posting a reply makes just one copy of the reply and
sticks it in the newsgroup where it will stay for the forseeable
future; mailing a reply sends a reply to the individual email of the
person who originally posted the message, or to any other individuals
that you add to the "to" list; or you can do both, often because you
think that the individual may not be reading the newsgroup frequently,
so that you want his/her own copy of the message to end up in his/her
email.