The article was commissioned by Red Gate and sent to me, same as any other article, though I'm honestly not sure if me, being SSC, is paying for it or Red Gate is. The author doesn't work for Red Gate AFAIK, but I could be wrong.

I don't want to make excuses here, but I'm still not sure how much this is a "Red Gate" overwhelming of the site. I still run the site as I choose and I wasn't pressured to run this article. Nor the survey earlier this week. I've run similar things for other companies. The SQLCentric review and the OfficeWriter review earlier this year were sent to me by those companies.

I thought this was a good way to show off products and I've sent it to a few other companies, asking them to do something similar. I think 3rd party tools are an important part of the community. And for the record, EVERY review we've ever run has been ok'd by the vendor, no matter who they are. We haven't necessarily thought it was fair for someone to slam a product unfairly, especially me or someone else. It's too easy for bad press to overwhelm good press and it's the same battle most publishers have problems with. We have in fact not put out a couple reviews in our 6 years at the request of the vendor. None of them were Red Gate and I'll decline to name names.

If you can point out specifically how Red Gate is driving the site, I'll look at what I'm doing. It's a fine line to walk and I definitely appreciate the feedback, positive or negative.