There is one GNU/Linux based project I want to help and currently the developers communicate by a mailing list. They don't use the forum. Actually, their mails appear in the forum. (It is a Drupal forum, in case you are interested.)

One big problem with this facility / working practice is that having a forum that can receive posts by mail means it gets a lot of spam.

Another separate problem is that the functionality of the forum is very basic. (There are some plugins for Drupal forum which add a bit of functionality, though.)

Anyway, I would love for the project to start using SMF forums. They are free, have tons of functionality and look gorgeous. Check them out!

This aside, what I really want to know is what is the advanced, better way than a mailing list?

I would love to hear your experiences and opinions about this. Please let me know!

EDIT

Do RSS feeds / Atom help much here at all?

I think majordomo, procmail and spamassassin still work. That's probably the easiest way. You can configure majordomo so that people must join the list. Spambots can't figure out how to join, and human spammers can be booted and banned. Spamassassin learns about spam by how you teach it. After it knows 100 spam emails and 100 not spam emails, it will start filtering spam. After a few weeks it will be very educated.