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Hi Essex and all

Discussing Adult Learning in Museums
Technically speaking, it is pretty straightforward setting up a new discussion list by following instructions at www.jiscmail.ac.uk , provided certain conditions are met, mainly relating to the status of the initiating organisation.  
This is how the GEM list was formed around 10 years ago, and it now has over 1000 subscribers.  Managing a list is also relatively undemanding and takes around an hour a month (less initially, as you have no subscribers...)

Making the list 'take off' is rather harder to achieve.  The majority of online forums fail to generate the critical mass of contributions needed to sustain dialogue and interest among users, and simply wither away.  Current best practice for museums and others seeking to engage new audiences is to tap into discussions within their preferred channels, rather than creating new, isolated, empty forums. 

So unless you are aiming to create a new entity or brand, I would have thought it would be better to do your talking where the people are already i.e. on the GEM list and on relevant, mature lists in HE and FE, including the 12 lists already available via NIACE:
http://www.niace.org.uk/information/Forms/ListSubscribe.asp

A blog or wiki might be more appropriate if the aim is to build up a resource of useful comments, links to articles, etc - but that would require major commitment to moderation, editing, dealing with technical issues etc - which is a role or set of roles requiring significant expertise and experience.   Of course there is also Facebook to consider, along with lots of other potential platforms. 

It is already difficult to keep in touch with all the channels supporting similar threads of discussion.   Many people who sit next to each other in an organisation or 'opposite' each other in related organisations are unaware of discussions that would be relevant to them and are continually reinventing the wheel or missing out on important social capital, simply because they don't know about or can't be bothered to subscribe to or check in on all the relevant lists or forums.  

So if the aim is simply to facilitate online dialogue about topics relating to Adult Learning in Museums, I reckon it is a no-brainer to use existing lists. 
Rather than having to make people join your new list one by one, and then each remember to suspend mail and sign up again after going on holiday (as well as all the other lists they are on) and deal with all the changes in email addresses etc etc... simply initiate new dialogues with those interested among the 1113 active, intelligent, articulate, considerate ...(I would go on but can sense you blushing) users already subscribed to the GEM list. 

Martin
Martin Bazley
GEM list owner