Jita Park Speakers Corner

It's a really foolish, damaging suggestion, is what I'm saying.

I said "gimmick accounts, etc", and I said "maybe by someone at CCP". You can't determine quality in an automatic fashion, and this process is too important to leave squarely to automatic systems which can be easily gamed.

And so what if 20 candidates from test wanted to reveal their real names and run for a spot at the CSM? They'd have just as much of a chance to get through to the final list as 20 candidates from hisec would.

Good to see we are back to multi-post complaining in this thread as well. Please discuss this subject like an adult.

#1 - Discussing the "Ideal" CSM candidate is moot. You will not be able to control who the ideal candidate is and who should get on the CSM. The only thing ANYONE is qualified for voting on in a popular election is to see that someone who represents their viewpoint gets into a position to do something with it.

So, I don't care how competent or incompetent you want a person to be, people will not be voting on that basis, and you can't control it anyways. It depends wholly on who steps up to the candidacy and how well they campaign for votes. That is the only thing you can control. We only have good CSM candidates because after FIVE (5) years of candidacy that we have a CSM that are feeling effective. And that is what it's going to take to get good candidates in place. Thankfully, most of that is behind us.

What you need to focus on is...


#2 - Making a CSM that represents the various and myriad viewpoints of the EVE landscape (which seems to be the biggest criticism at the moment, get High Seccers involved) and can form opinions on what CCP is planning on doing on a development cycle and makes CCP feel like they are also getting what they want out of the process (This theme is repeated in minutes over and over about why does CCP want to turn to the CSM, etc).

Yes, a lot is asked for from the CSM, and they need a lot of different skills, but that's on them to prove they can do it, and there is no system of checks that can ensure you get the "right" people other than the right people step up to make sure the wrong people don't get elected in. And even then you won't succeed 100% of the time.


1 - EVE players deserve to have candidates that have a clear position on topics set forth by CCP (which will anchor the reason that CSMs opinion matters with the real reason they care about the CSM, because CCP thinks it matters). As someone said, a long form essay and a short synopsis on a limited set of topics that they should be campaigning on.

2 - followed by a well established position by that CSM candidate so the players know why they should be voting for that CSM candidate.

3 - which allows candidates to find their opposition and campaign against that opposition to the players that care about those topics

4 - and forms a prescriptive structure which helps people easily understand what they expect, what they are getting and why they should put the effort into the voting process

5 - and lets the voter judge the outcome of their last years vote for the next year it comes around for that CSM candidate with a cause and effect nature.


Despite all the negative press about high sec motivation and the rampant negative comments which are useless... the way you get high sec to care about your topics is to make it easy for them to understand what is going on. The amount of null sec organization happens because a lot of time and trust is put together to build those relationships in null sec, especially with the lowliest members. A tribal feeling develops and you're going to want to get your "tribe" in there.

That doesn't exist in high sec, so you have to appeal to the mass media appeal of simplifying matters to their simplest nature so that a person can look at a topic and how it's polarized (good vs bad for that individual) and get them to realize that if they don't step up and act then the wrong things will happen to them (or make them feel that way).

You need bad guys to have good guys. And the current process is so obscured and murky that noone knows who is doing what and why on the CSM when it comes to election time because it's obscured by too much information.

Which is why i mentioned my proposal on the first few pages.

I should be the one blamed for this usage of their time. I wanted to look into the CSM structure as it has remained mostly the same since 2008 and I asked (ordered) them to spend time on this.

Regarding platforms or having predefined areas that candidates run for:
I've always wanted the CSM to be as much player driven as possible. I feel that by declaring that people have to run on gamestyles limits the CSM in manners that I cannot predict or try to compensate for in other manners.

People can run as an expert on a certain area of the game and many have done that. I want that to come from the candidates, not from CCP.

I've also mentioned it in the past and will continue to do so - it is perfectly alright for CSM people to seek advice from people who are considered experts (as long as there is no NDA violations involved). I'd say that solution is a much better one than stuffing candidates into boxes that limit their horizons.

The problem with dividing CSM seats along set 'playstyles' is that in an incredibly interconnected game like EVE that allows for multiple alts per player, any attempt at such a division is by definition completely abstract and arbitrary, unable to effectively represent EVE in reality. Players and CSM representations can and do play multiple playstyles at once; forcing both them and the voters to label themselves to the lines an arbitrary 'region' that doesn't reflect their experiences can only reduce the CSM's effectiveness.

Wormhole players only represent 5% of the active playerbase according to CCP Diagoras, but not only was Two Step able to represent WH-players' interests in the CSM, he received the most votes of anyone in CSM7 at present. If the vote however was divided along 'playstyle', either wormholer votes would be overrepresented (one wormhole main's vote being worth 4 nullsec or 8 highsec votes) or, if the seats were distributed by way of account main population, reduced from the representation they receive now. Two Step's performance in the election, representing a community of small corporations and alliances frequently at war at one another and no set form of intercommunication, yet outscoring all nullsec candidates except for one, is living proof against the idea that the current voting system is somehow favoring large nullsec blocs. The system works.

"Playstyle" based representation also introduces the problem that EVE demographics are not set in stone. What if Faction Warfare's representation on the CSM council was locked at pre-Inferno population levels? Would that somehow be doing FW a favor? Come to think of it, nearly all of the 'playstyles' seem to get some representation. I think NPC 0.0 is the only one missing out.




I completely agree, and actually mentioned your survey in my post back on page 5. The biggest hurdle in solving the CSM's perceived problem with itself (imho) is efficient delivery of relevant information to potential voters. Sloganeering, while championed by some people in this thread, is only one of multiple ways of doing this that CCP and the CSM can try.

Good in theory, but this is how it is setup now and it isn't working.

Under this system, it is simple enough for an organized group of players to gather enough votes to put one or more of their candidates on the CSM, with the apparent intention of pushing their specific agenda. TheMittani proved this, and didn't hide the fact that he was out to prove that it could be done (not that he actually did push only a CFC agenda after he was elected, but he certainly could have). Others are following his example and we've now got voting blocks.

The fact that the election can be gamed in this fashion doesn't exactly encourage the non-alliance players to participate in the voting process. They know how this works from RL, where they probably don't bother to vote either.

Also, as far as most non-voters are concerned, the CSM does not seek advice from outside experts, unless they happen to be their friends. This is human nature, ofc, but it gives the wrong impression when you are attempting to run a representative body. In RL, we call this cronyism, even when the "experts" really are experts. And, it further discourages non-voters from voting.

So, allocating seats isn't about "stuffing candidates into boxes that limit their horizons". In fact, it really isn't about the candidates at all.

Allocating seats is about projecting the impression to the non-voting players that, if they vote, their part of Eve will indeed be represented in the CSM, because they are specifically voting for someone to take an area/issue-specific seat. Ie. high sec players will believe that they are getting a representative for high sec issues, since they are voting for someone to fill a high-sec seat.

Now, sure, some people will expect a person elected to a specific area/issue seat to *only* represent that area/issue and ignore all other areas/issues, but those people are a narrow-minded minority. The majority will not care if a CSM member elected to one seat also actively participates in discussions regarding other matters, as long as the area/issue which they represent is not being totally neglected. This, in fact, is to be expected since, as has been stated elsewhere, most Eve players have a wide range of in-game experience - null sec players have high sec alts, PVP players run POSes and do T2 manufacturing to fund their ships/modules, etc.

In RL, this is somewhat similar to the US Senate, where each state has 2 Senators, irregardless of population. This system was put in place because smaller states felt that only having the House of Representatives, where the number of Representatives is based on population, would result in their issues being under-represented against the larger states. But, although a Senator is voted from a particular state and is expected to represent that state's interests, it does not mean that the Senator is unable to participate in broader issues, such as by sitting on the Committee on Armed Services.

People will always organize into groups. How are you going to stop this? More non-alliance nullbloc people were voted into power in CSM7 than were voted in to CSM6. The greater voter turnout on CSM7 helped dilute the power of the voting bloc.

I don’t personally see voting blocs as a problem. If you're a group that is motivated and well-organized, you're going to dominate any election. Motivation and organization are two traits that should be encouraged. We want to see people passionate about the political process. For those concerned with organized voting blocs, the only legitimate way to dilute their voting power is by adding more voters to the process. We should want to see the number of voters increase, year-by-year.

Let's do some CSM6 and CSM7 comparisons. CSM7 did see a substantial increase in voting numbers, so we should expect to see the voting bloc influence somewhat diluted.

For CSM6, 49096 votes were cast out of 344533 eligible accounts. 26366 votes were cast for nullsec candidates, or 53.7% of the total vote.

CSM7 saw an increase of 10000 voters, up to 59109 out of 355436 eligible accounts. 24695 votes were cast for nullsec candidates, or 41.8% of the total vote.

The larger voting blocs were still able to push their candidates into CSM seats, but we saw a marked dilution of their vote, as candidates with smaller bases won seats. The increase in voter turnout tended to favour non-nullsec candidates. In the end, nullsec did not dominate the final results, only garnering six of the fourteen available spots (a loss of four seats from CSM6.) Of areas of the game that saw new and renewed representation, industry got their candidate in Issler Dainze, faction warfare got their candidate in Hans Jagerblitzen, mercenaries and pirates got Alekseyev Karrde, highsec got Kelduum Revaan, wormholes got Two Step, and the everyman got Trebor.

So the problem with the system is that when a large enough margin of people are motivated to vote for one person, that person wins? That sounds like the system is working, not the other way around. The counter is to get the rest of EVE's population as involved with voting as nullsec blocs, Faction Warfare and Wormhole players have all proven possible, not seek out ways to disregard and diminish the power of legitimate votes.

The US Senate is an excellent example of why not to adopt it.
Edit: Since the Senate is based on space, not proportional representation, that would mean since Nullsec and Wormhole Space are 33% of the total amount of space in New Eden, they'd carry 1/3rd of weight each in the Senate of Stellar Management. hth

Also, 'irregardless' is not a word.

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hth