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.