really depends on the mailing list software. unfortunately there is basically google grouops and/or mailman2/mailman3. for self hosting there isn't even a choi

really depends on the mailing list software. unfortunately there is basically google grouops and/or mailman2/mailman3. for self hosting there isn't even a choice at all: mailing lists suffer even more from what forums suffer as well: little software choice that ticks all the boxes for different people with different needs. however the real (search) power of the mailing lists is of course that you have the mails locally for the lists where you are subscribed to... i remember forum searches becoming so heavy, site wide search forms had to be hidden behind sign up walls... and it was mostly poor keywords search, forget about full text. with local emails at least i get a shot at organizing and searching for it. try saving a local copy of a forum thread...