A periodical collection of messages which have been posted to a newsgroup or mailing list. A digest is prepared by a moderATor who selects articles from the group or list, formATs them and adds a contents list. The digest is then either mailed to an alternATive mailing list or posted to an alternATive newsgroup. Some news readers and electronic mail programs provide commands to "undigestify" a digest, i.e. to split it up into individual articles which may then be read and saved or discarded separATely.