Jita Park Speakers Corner

~heh~

Gather 'round, children, grandpa's gonna tell the story about the time when he was a very important person in an internet spaceships game.

We're all ears Johnny Marzetti

As usual, this thread has disintegrated into a handful of Goony Toons (loved reading that ealrier) sitting on the sidelines sniping away like little children sitting in th back of the classroom making wisecracks while leading the OP through a set of hoops all designed to trip up the logic and discourage any real discussion on the issue. Yes, if they shout it down long enough, it turns to goo.

CCP has to realize that the only people represented by the CSM are the ones who voted, so the smaller the field of voters, the smaller the value of the CSM becomes.

Yeah, CCP - hire the pros and get a first class marketing firm as that guy said a few pages back.

This whole "high school student government" experiment has proven itself useless.

Let the power hungry satisfy their self esteem issues within corps and alliances and let the rest of us just a play a game devised and refined by adults. Why should the vast majority of players, who just want to play, have to organize and become more successful at power seeking just so we can dismantle that failed paradigm, anyway?

Just recognize the voter turnout for what it is - a small portion of the player base wanting to impose their views on the vast majority of the players who don't choose to play the part of the game they think we should.

And as that guy earlier said, go ahead and attack me personally for my bald head and any typos I may have made, but - OMG - stick to the nonsense, because we all want to avoid the real issue here anyway!

I should have quoted that single voice of reason, but hell, I'm no froum rat who knows all those little secrets.

No-one cares.

Internet Spaceships =/= serious business for those of us who have friends and lives, sorry.

I'm a goony toon and I vote.

I like boobies.

Goonie toonies with boobies and weenies? And they say democracy doesn't work.

Thanks, added the meat of your post to the OP.

(I hate the way this ******* forum eats posts)

A "None of the Above" option would not significantly affect the outcome of the CSM elections.

All forms of government rely on the consent of the governed, Even the most brutal dictator must have the "support" of the majority of their people. In this case support being defined as satisfied enough with the status quo to not take action to change it.

There is this saying that 90% of the battle is showing up (This coincidentally is why we own Branch while WN. is couch surfing), this applies just as much to democracy as any other activities.

Those who are active politically are generally the people who are dissatisfied and effected significantly enough by the status quo that the value of their time spent on affecting change is greater than their alternatives. The corollary being that those who are least active are those who are generally satisfied with the status quo.

Here is a brief history lesson of how CSM6 came about. For the first 5 cycles of the CSM program the null blocks generally ignored it as being a mostly irrelevant PR whitewash by CCP in the wake of the t20 debacle. The CSM didn't significantly affect them so they pretty much ignored it.

Then CSM5 said "hey removing jump bridges is a great idea" and CCP said "coolio".

Suddenly the CSM didn't seem like so much of a joke to those null power blocks. So they did what any interest group would do when faced with such a situation,

They organized, They created a platform they organized their constituency in many cases in game enemies put aside their differences to work towards a common cause and because of the general apathy towards the CSM process from the majority of the player base and the fragmented nature of other constituencies they were able to have a disproportionate affect on the outcome.

This happened because they gave enough of a **** about the outcome to take action.

The fact is that unless they are adversely affected by the actions of the CSM most people don't really give a rats ass who's on it. What difference does The_Mittani being the CSM chair have on the average high sec dweller? The answer is not a lot.

The_Mittani may be evil but he's not stupid so you won't see him advocating idiocy that would enrage the average high seccer enough to motivate them into action so don't expect him to start championing nerfs to incursions or moving L4s to low sec.

His detractors can cry boohoohoo "goons are a bunch meanies" until they are blue in the face and it won't have any affect on the outcome, because the average empire pubie isn't negatively affected by him being CSM. In fact those who are rational enough to look past his corp/alliance tag to the stuff he's actually advocated and accomplished, end up having to conclude that he's actually a very affective CSM Chair period.


BTW does anyone else find it interesting that the people who cry the most about wanting a Meritocracy are generally the people that such a system would place at the bottom of the heap.