  In [Braz. J. Phys. 30, 27 (2000)] Dickman et al. suggested that
self-organized criticality can be produced by coupling the activity of an
absorbing state model to a dissipation mechanism and adding an external drive.
We analyzed the proposed mechanism in [Phys. Rev. E 73, 025106R (2006)] and
found that if this mechanism is at work, the finite-size scaling found in
self-organized criticality will depend on the details of the implementation of
dissipation and driving. In the preceding comment [Phys. Rev. E XX, XXXX
(2008)] Alava et al. show that one avalanche exponent in the AS approach
becomes independent of dissipation and driving. In our reply we clarify their
findings and put them in the context of the original article.
