The greatest idea of monetary engineering was presented to the public by email

It is known that initially Satoshi Nakamoto posted samples of the blockchain code (a pre-release version) on a cryptography mailing list (metzdowd) to get reviews and spread the word. Can anyone give us more details about this mailing list? How did it work? Any member of the mailing list could send emails to others? It was like a more "private" forum?