Alternatives to mailing list?

Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of chaos. Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication method" with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an idea? Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been going on... Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems inefficient at best and chaos at its worst... I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing to try and find something we could try out. -Clint