mgmegadog asked: While I can understand why you wouldn't want to share your data, you must realize that the reason we want it is because there have been numerous examples of misusing data recently; the perception that Copy-Cat was going to be fine, Sam Stoddard's post where he stated that he received a positive response about how people felt about something (standard?) when the poll showed overwhelming negative opinion, etc. With that in mind, why would we NOT doubt the conclusions you've been reaching?

The Copy-Cat decision came from us being nervous about banning another card, not from us misrepresenting data.

Sam’s column came about because Sam looked at the early responses and assumed later data would be similar when it, in fact, it got worse. Sam never intended to misrepresent data. Note that data was public so misrepresenting it on purpose would have just been foolish. Sam, by the way, apologized for that incident.

We have been a transparent company since the earliest days. I talk to you all openly on a daily basis. There’s no great business reason here for us to lie to you on this current batch of data. If there was a correlation between promo cards and attendance, we’d be doing promo cards. There’s no business reason to not do things that work.

The bigger issue is you can assume we’re lying all the time and never have an open communication with us, or you can assume that we’re actually telling the truth and talk with us about how you feel.

You pressuring me to give you private business data, I can’t make public, doesn’t do anything but make things adversarial for no gain.

You want to know why we’re doing something, ask me. I’ll talk as openly and honestly about it as I’m allowed.

But please, have the courtesy to assume I’m not lying to you.