To add another data point, I'm not on the YC list but I am part of the Techstars and 500 Startups lists, which are similar (I have several friends who went thro

To add another data point, I'm not on the YC list but I am part of the Techstars and 500 Startups lists, which are similar (I have several friends who went through YC and we've compared notes.) Surprisingly, the lists have similar threads--lots of threads like "Who should I use for health insurance in NYC" or "Do you have an experience with X company/VC/investor" or "Looking for an intro to an X person at [huge company]." Both 500 and Techstars have brought on in-house devs to change from a standard email list to a dashboard where you can subscribe to topics you're interested in to cut down on noise. Both are pretty active and the founders and leaders participate. Techstars in particular gets some great responses--Brad Feld often responds to emails asking for a VC perspective on an issue, for instance.