I'd be happy to host the list at firemountain.net, where a Mailman 2.X instance has been happily running a few dozen public and private lists for 15-ish years (majordomo before that) (homebrew scripts before that). No charge, no ads.
If the archives are available in mbox format (or something that can be massaged into mbox format) I can import all of those. I would also suggest that -- to future-proof this -- that multiple people stash those archives and stash future archives as they accrue. Given archives and a subscriber list, a mailing list can be reconstituted anywhere. Merging lists: if the consensus is that it should be done, I can do that. (Whether that means the subscriber lists, the archives, or both.) Attachments: that's also do-able if consensus indicates but I recommend that they be limited to open formats, because delivering messages with proprietary attachments is a quagmire even if all the recipients want them. (long explanation omitted) Many years of experience indicate that doing this and imposing a soft large-but-finite maximum message size facilitates communication without overwhelming people. And since someone will ask: I use mutt. ---rsk
