The kind of people who are into data, technology and open-source tend to have strong opinions. The sort of people who read about these things also tend to.  Talking to Dirty D, I frequently hear that most of the people who read his posts don't bother leaving comments because they excoriate him on  IM and by email for his opinions.  These are subjects that bring up strong intellectual passions and a lot of emotional investment.

Sometimes we say things about products, methods or vendors.  It's going to happen on a blog.  I can't say that I'll defend every statement that we'll ever make on this site, but I will say that I'll defend everything we've said to date. How to be fair to the people whose products and services we slam? Or just discuss?

I had a lot to think about with respect to this when an official represenative from SAS decided to come by here and engage us in debate. Pluribus had a post about The New York Times' reporting on R (which is quickly becoming the preferred tech around here, but Dirty D still swears by SPSS.) and made a few cracks about SAS, which, really, while flip, weren't unjustified.   We were honored to have Steve come by and engage us in the comments.

I believe that that kind of good faith commitment to discussion and debate should be rewarded and encouraged, and that is why we are introducing a new feature to this site: Right of Response. Any vendor or group who feels disparaged by what we write here is free to have us post a rebuttal from them and allow them to engage our readers in debate.  Steve, if you're still with us, email me and I'll temporarily bump your privileges to allow you to post SAS's views.

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