We thank the editorial board for the opportunity to engage in a public dialogue about our work and the commentators for providing interesting and challenging comments. We are especially pleased that Tom Snijders and Carter Butts took the time to comment on our article because the Dynamic Network Actor Model (DyNAM) builds upon both their work. Moreover, their contrasting comments highlight important distinctions between actor-oriented and tie-based network models as well as in methodological thinking more generally. We take this opportunity to clarify some misconceptions and further develop a lively discussion within our research community. First, we identify what we perceive as different ideas about the aim of statistical network modeling. Second, we outline our conclusions about the fundamental difference between actor- and tie-oriented models for relational events. Third, we respond to specific comments received by Carter Butts (Butts, 2017) and Tom Snijders (Snijders, 2017) in separate sections. Finally, we discuss and emphasize the role of actor-oriented network models, like the DyNAM, in the portfolio of statistical network models.