To my mind, the sort of use that Andrew envisages for the
ope archive, if it were opened, makes a pretty good argument
for keeping it closed. IMO, the "proper" use of access to
the archive would be (e.g.) as a source of problems,
tentative arguments and so on, that might, say, stimulate or
offer some direction to a good student. Andrew, on the
other hand, seems to wish to use it as a means of pinning
people to certain positions which he can then attack (or
defend). This is obviously tempting, but seems to go
against the spirit of the list. The putting of a position
into reasonably well-defined black-and-white is the function
of the print medium. If I publish a journal article I'm
saying to the world, "This is my view; cite it, attack it or
defend it publicly if you like." Sometimes I feel the same
about my postings to ope and sometimes I don't -- they can
be much more tentative than that (even if baldly stated at
the time!).
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University