Jita Park Speakers Corner

from http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/csm7-individual-impressions.html

(image: CSM7 Group Photo)

Just some impressions of the CSM members, based on any number of things. Their performance during the CSM Summit. What they said during their campaign, and then what they did after they won their seat. Their visibility. The amount of work they put into the Summit Report. Podcast appearances. The amount and quality of their communications with the playerbase.

Overall, I think CSM7 is doing a far better job than CSM6, especially in the communications department. We know far more with respect to what this CSM is doing, what they're up too, what they're talking to CCP about, than we ever did with CSM6. We know far more in the way of specifics. CSM6 was generalized. We knew only what The Mittani wanted us to know. His CSM was an amorphous committee. Our CSM is a group of individuals working together.

Yes, there are flaws. There are mistakes. There are gaffes. Some personalities rub the wrong way. Some rub the right way.

These are just my impressions of the candidates.

I've decided to add some humour into the mix, so I've given each CSM member a Trailer Park Boys persona, which I'll try to relate back to them. If you're not familiar with the Trailer Park Boys, then the joke will be lost on you. If you're curious to check it out, it's a Canadian comedy, crass as hell, but exceptionally funny.

Seleene as Julian
Julian is what holds it all together. Everyone looks to him for direction. He's the leader.

He needs to find the time to write more. He's a great communicator when he finds that time. Definitely a fine choice as chairman for CSM7.

I feel Seleene's doing a better overall job than The Mittani did during CSM6. Seleene is a more democratic head. The Mittani would have never let a 160 page CSM Summit Report be released. Agree or disagree as you will with the size of the report, most in the CSM wanted to try for more transparency and Seleene said "go for it." I'm sure what they've learned with the last summit report, will make the next all that much better.

Mittens controlled his CSM with an iron fist. Seleene doesn't take that sort of big brother attitude, thus we get more communication overall from CSM7 than we ever did from CSM6. We don't just hear from the chairman alone. It's not just The Mittani this, or The Mittani that, as it was in CSM6. CSM7 is made up of individuals. Seleene makes no attempt to shut down the individual, rather he encourages it.

Seleene has allowed his CSM to set the bar high, a hurdle all future CSMs will have to reach.

Seleene does have a tendency to get locked into his mansion on the hill worldview. I think that's the case with many in Pandemic Legion. They live at a lofty height that few others do. But I do see him making honest attempts to see and hear all viewpoints, even if it is a struggle for him to see things from the viewpoint of the 10M skillpoint pilot with only a 100M ISK in the bank.


Two Step as Ricky
Ricky, always talking when he shouldn't be talking. Only sees his own small corner of the world, the the bigger picture of the world eludes him.

Two Step comes across as a **** sometimes. One of those "my way or the highway" sort of guys. He really needs to chill out. He has good ideas, but he also has a lot of bad ideas, and the bad ideas tend to only validate his limited worldview. Take his recent townhall about wormholes. I got the impression that if he had the power, he'd yank Transmission Lost out of their C2 and plop them into a C6, telling them "You were playing wormholes wrong, now play them the right way!" I think he's been playing the game for so long that he forgets that there's not just single paths to success within certain areas of play. His metrics for success are not written in stone. Everyone defines their own success in their own way. That is what the sandbox is. His small area of the sandbox does not constitute the whole.

His need to weigh in on every damned topic is also annoying. During the next CSM Summit, I'd like to see him take a backseat, let other's shine where they may. That will probably be hard for him to do, because he loves to talk, but he'd probably be more effective if he wasn't weighing in on every topic, offering up good ideas half the time, and utter **** the other half.

Trebor as Bubbles
Bubbles the rational man of the triumvirate. He knows Ricky and Julian are going to get into much trouble, he simply tries to mitigate it as much as possible.

He's the level-headed dude of the bunch. I think he grounds Two Step and Seleene much of the time, directs them back down from the clouds.

Trebor spends much of his time with the common player. Dirtnap Squad is a working man's nullsec alliance. Those guys aren't out defending against 50 supercarriers in their 16 titans. They're out roaming around in cruisers and frigates and stealth bombers. This is stuff the regular player can relate too. How Trebor plays the game is how most of us play the game.

He can be a bit short-tempered on the forums, but he seems easily approachable, as long as what you're asking or requesting is not ridiculous. He's not entirely out of line in thinking that players should be able to weed out the stupid requests from the smart requests themselves.

Some cite his experience with game design. But really, Wizardry and the Apple II are world's away from the current state of game development. His business sense is his stronger background attribute, which keeps his suggestions and requests to CCP within manageable bounds.

UAxDEATH as J-Roc
Greene Lee as "T"
Dovinian as Detroit Velvet Smooth
The Roc-pile. Barely can you make out anything that they're saying, know what I'm sayin'?

I don't know much about the Russians, UAx and Greene. UAx seems like a pretty funny guy, judging from the Summit Report. He has some good ideas and some bad ideas. His dislike of all logistics is amusing and terribly bad at the same time. Must be that brawling Russian mentality. Brute force everything. He handles English fairly well, thus is able to contribute without barriers.

Greene, I hear, struggles greatly with English. I hear he's a funny guy. I'm sure he's popular enough with the Russians. But please, next time, vote someone who has a half-decent grasp of English. I'm not being an ******* here, but the common language between devs and playerbase is English. So, if a CSM is to be effective at their job, being able to communicate with the devs is mightily important. Hell, a reasonable command of English should actually be a requirement for the CSM. I'm sure the language barrier is the primary reason for Greene's lack of participation during the summit. He did get some points across, but not nearly as many, I'd imagine, were he more comfortable with English.

Dovinian. Again. Fairly useless CSM member. About the only thing I've ever heard about him is that he's a terrible racist. That tidbit guided who I chose as Dovinian from the cast photo above.

Kelduum Revaan as Corey
Wants to fit in, wants the same notoriety and respect as Julian, Ricky and Bubbles, but ends up being mostly a joke and mostly walked all over by the three of them. Doesn't know how to stand up for himself, his personality is incapable of it.

Kelduum was going to represent everybody, according to his campaign platform. He was writing forum posts. Appearing on podcasts. Then he won his seat. What public appearances has he made since? Is he actually representing everyone? Or is the CSM just some padding for his EVE Online resumé? The CSM just a feather in his cap, another reason for the EVE University newbies to swoon, because he definitely loves the adulation, even if it's adulation from a position of complete ignorance.

Everyone that voted for Kelduum, they should be ashamed of themselves. Double face-palm ashamed. He takes his free trip to Iceland and then mostly sits quietly through meetings. Was he voted in because he has great listening skills? Or was he voted in because people thought he could make a difference? Listening makes no difference at all. Then when it came time to write the Summit Report, he begged off. Too busy. Sorry. He wasn't too busy to go to Iceland, though.

Highsec can do better than this asshat. People didn't vote a leader when they cast for Kelduum. They voted an administrator. A spreadsheet wizard. Christ, he doesn't know anything about the game, outside of corporate management (and even then, he didn't offer up much during that session and actually proved counter-productive in a couple of instances.) Read any advanced topic on the UniWiki. His organization doesn't have a clue what it is doing outside of core fundamentals at their most basic level. That is what Kelduum brought to the table.

Kelduum spends more time on the CSM learning about the game than he does actually trying to improve the game.

Darius III as Trevor
The only person more useless than Corey is his pal Trevor.

There's nothing else to say about Darius. He represents the apathy among the playerbase of EVE Online. But if you're apathetic, you shouldn't be bothered enough to vote.

(image: CSM7 Group Photo)

That is creepily accurate from a personality standpoint tbh.