Poor Steve. I feel for you buddy. Stuck on the CSM as the lonely non-aligned and beholden member of the newly elected representative body. To be fair, I'm being a little unfair. No one believes Nashh is actually a PL aligned player, his heart is in Low Sec and probably always will be. But Nashh has moved on to other things these days and I get why he slid over under that banner. It seems to have worked for him and I wish him well, as always. I hope he doesn't forget us. As for the rest, The Judge, Mr Hyde, and Gorski can be relied upon to remember their roots I believe. It still would have been good to have a new non-aligned representative on the CSM this year. We are gonna miss Mike.
Every year I spin my web of puppet strings to make that happen behind-the-scenes and this year I fell short in my machinations. A combination of real life distractions and extremely low voter turn out combined to defeat my ebil plans. For the first time I actually had a public candidate to get on the student council and he didn't make it. This is the first time a candidate I really wanted to get on, hasn't gotten on. Sorry Joffy, but we shall try again next year my friend.
So all of this brings up some points I'd like to make in regards to the CSM. And some reforms I'd like to advocate for next year.
A) Every candidate for CSM needs to declare their PRIMARY area of play within the game. High-Sec, Low-Sec, WH, or Null.
B) Only three players from each of those areas can be elected to the CSM. Except for the 2 highest vote getters, who (no matter their PRIMARY) get permanent seats. That makes 14 CSM members.
This ensures that each area of space gets represented on the Council and that those that are supported more than others get permanent seats. Whoever brings the votes will get a slight advantage. As is only fair. Granted, the way things work in Eve, most players bring expertise in more than one area of space. Take myself for example, I've played in every area of space. While I certainly lean towards Low-Sec these days, my personal experience encompasses all of Eve. I certainly admit to a very strong LS bias, but that bias is a positive one and not negative towards any other area. Which is why I'd make such a great CSM member.
In addition CCP needs to help bring the election to the game itself. An active and participatory player base is good for everyone. So I'd like to see more log-in screen support, in-game notifications, billboard and hangar ads, etc., next year.
We all know why Null Sec dominates the CSM every year even though they constitute such a small percentage of the player base. It's like Donald Trump. There is only one Donald Trump, but he gets all the news. It is time to make some CSM reforms to ensure the Council better reflects the player-base. And if voters are not going to do it, then we should do it for them.
My fingers are crossed for CSM11. Please don't make things worse.
Comments
HiSec: Indy, Incursions, Missions, Marketing, Corp/Alliance Management, War Decs I would vote for all 5 if they had good people.
Equally:
NullSec: Indy, Corp/Alliance Management, Solo PvP, PvE, Sov Warfare, medium-scale fleets.
For example with the PL-affiliated candidates, there aren't any primary nullsec candidates except Bobmon (though tbh i don't really know where he plays), Gorski & Hyde spend most their time in Low, Nashh has LowSec background and is now full-timing Tourney stuff, Noobman is a WH expert.
People focus far too much on Sec when it comes to CSMs, it should be on what they do in game. Not that it's not important, but that highly-active speciast people do not easily slot into those pigeonholes a significant portion of the time. Personally, I'm pretty evenly split on Low/Null because i do a lot of medium-size roaming gangs. Someone like Kenneth Feld who could be a great CSM considered a master of Hi/Low and Null because he's an Indy guru. Would that mean he'd have to get stuck in with NullSeccers because he's in PL? Should a Null-Seccer who also has a little side corp war-deccing in HiSec run on the Hisec group and get all his null buddies to get him in anyway? Does this mean voters have to declare a sec? Making people feel like they can only interact with one class of space in their playtime would be terrible as I'm sure you agree.
TL;DR Don't focus on where they live first, focus on what they do first, then make sure that you have a good mix of doing across all areas of space.
Methea Selenis
They do play in high sec but they're not remotely representative.
1 - Any system can be gamed.
2 - The Declaration would be important for the Candidate as well as the voters.
3 - It is ultimately the voters decision to support or not support a Candidate. if you don't want a hi-sec ganker representing HS then don't vote for them.
4 - Declarations are not restrictive, it would remain the Candidates job to convince people outside their declaration to support them. Voters would remain able to vote for any candidate, this system only ensures a wider range of representation, which is the goal.
I think to be representative, all we need is a broader voting base. Greater CCP support for voting and less turmoil in its leadership in the middle of an election probably fix a lot of things.
I agree with Sugar that representation would be game-able as would almost any other 'who do you really work for' type of artificial limits on who gets seats. That was proven fairly accurately at Fanfest 2015 as I recall.
I do fear the effects a bad CSM could have on the continuance of the process but the thing will be to keep the execution from poisoning the concept.
If you want my advice? Do not go worry abut allegiance but rather position. If the person has major corp roles then they may have difficulty making the time and loyalty commitment. But them, the most active people do wind up DOING THINGS and being leaders, each in their own way. It is that passion for getting things done that we need in the CSM.
Not sure there is a right way to run a democracy . . . what was the churchill quote about that?
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…
we keep trying,
m
Just shut it down. Whatever CCP wants to accomplish with the CSM, can be accomplished in the thousand other ways in which thousand other corporations interact to their customers.
EVE it's just a game. Let players be JUST PLAYERS. Alarmclocking videoconferences with corporate officers in foreign countries should not be a part of playing a videogame!
If players came up with a positive alternative that doesn't conflate fake democracy with genuine representation, it would help matters along. Why are people looking at CCP to fix this? The answer can only come from the players if they genuinely want to determine who represents them.
I continue to believe that concerns about "diverse representation" is less a real issue than a handy soapbox. Experienced players--even if their current focus is nullsec--tend to have tried more than one playstyle or have alts in different areas of the game, and thus can bring good feedback and expertise to non-nullsec topics of discussion. I saw it firsthand in CSM5 plenty of times; I bet it has been true for every CSM term and that CSM 11 will be no exception. The CSM 11 electees' answers on EVE Vote Match do offer some insights in this regard. http://match.eve-csm.com/compare.php#
Would you trust the future of your game on the fickle hand of democracy? I sure as hell wouldn't.
Of course CCP can also do away with the CSM entirely and start using focus groups more forcefully. Then voting activity will no longer be an issue.
Now if they really manage to fulfil that goal - that remains to be seen
Lets start now.
An indecent CSM member can leak for his people and try to corrupt individual developers (or blackmail them using insider info to bend a knee). So indecent people will run for CSM and organized groups vote for them. Not because the ordinary PL or Goon is indecent, but because their CEO is indecent and tells them "this is the PL/Goon ballot, support your people".
The result is what we see: a pure PL/Goon CSM that leaks and makes all kind of mess