I am as happy as anyone to still find you looking down at the grass, which is the important thing. I have followed the Digest or its Usenet echo since JSOL was moderator.
I don't, however, think the moderation of a mailing list is property that can be sold. I doubt you bought it from JSOL or have a deed of gift. I do believe you own the web site. If you sold the web site, it would make a mess not to include a transference of the moderation, so maybe it doesn't much matter.
Perhaps you could get the Telephone Pioneers interested in taking over the operation. That would give it a pseudo immortality. TD is the Internet autobiography of telecom after all.
But hang around a few more years. We need you and your remembrances.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, maybe a mailing list is property which can be sold, or maybe it is not ... I do know that several years ago -- when a company called 'TOPICA' was quite active (remember them, anyone?) Topica management offered me one dollar per each name on my mailing list (as they did for many Usenet moderators) with the admonition in mind, "we do not need to tell anyone on the net this is what we are doing, and we will continue to have you moderate the thing." I mean, how sneaky can you get? All I had to do was supply them with a list of names/emails, put them in charge of the add/removes to the list, etc; they could have cared less about the content. No one would have even noticed the extra spam generated as a result of Topica's participation.On the other hand, I would like to find someone who is willing and will commit to maintaining the Digest and newsgroup in the style I have established, take care of the archives, or improve on their filing, and in geneal work with the same zeal I have shown here. How that person wishes to treat me with respect or consideration for my efforts over the years will be negotiated. And it will not be something which gets snuck past: if and when any argreement is ever reached, every reader here will receive an annncement saying "person X is designated, as of date Z I am out of here, goodbye and thank you." Then others can do as they please. No back door sneaking around as Topica and certain other spammers would prefer. I would hope if the day ever comes when I am no longer the moderator here I will still be welcome to continue posting; but that would be the new editor/ publisher's choice at that point. As Sonia Florian said when WNIB was sold, "I wish they had decided to continue on with classical music; it always was a great format for me, but how can I tell others what to do with their newly purchased property?". PAT