Jita Park Speakers Corner

I bet this will be a short thread...

I would have thought this terrible idea was shot down sufficiently enough by now, but I guess not. Are you guys really that worried about re-election? ;)

For real though, the discussion needs to start at "is there even a problem?" and then if it's decided that there even is one, then moved on to "what the problem is?" and then once that's decided, then onto "how do we fix it?". Going straight to voter reform skipped the first two parts, which is never good, and given it was presented to us after a veritable black hole of communication, came off as unbelievably self-serving. That's still not even taking into account how stupidly biased Trebor's proposed system was.

Ahh, sounds good, removed my last part then as it's irrelevant :)

I'll get it started, then.

Truthfully I'm not even sure there IS a problem. It's kind of strange to me that this CSM had the issue kickstarted, when it's probably one of the more diverse ones in history. I can't think of a single area of gameplay that isn't represented by at least one council member, save maybe Incursions. Hell, there was even one wormhole candidate whose name I can't recall for some reason who came in 2nd overall in voting, with a fairly comfortable lead over every voting bloc but one! Issler Dainze is also proof positive that even tiny candidates have a chance, and Darius III is proof that the barrier for entry to the council is so small, it's barely a raised curb. Without a few more CSM election's worth of data since CCP decided to actually listen to the CSM in the past few councils, it's really a stretch to say if there's a problem at all.

The only way I could see a problem is if CCP has some kind of survey data or somesuch that says new players aren't voting because of the voting system. I have my doubts about that as well, since they'd have just changed it on their own, and rightly so since their data on the subject would best allow them to tailor the changes to the specified problem. Crowdsourcing it gives me the impression that no such data exists (in that it wasn't ever collected, not that it says different).

Less organized communities need to get organized. It is that simple. Any system of attempting to do their organizing for them will be gamed.

General Discussion, Jita Park and specialist forums exist for people to announce their candidacy, policies, attract support and eventually nominate for CSM.

I like Trebor's scheme, being functionally similar to the way the Senate is elected in oz.

Do you have a link to further explanations of your points?

The spoiler effect is very real, and a good reason for someone like Two step to be concerned, since it will have its biggest effect in the smaller communities like wormholers. Which could not only cause Two step to lose his seat, but also cause the WH community to lose it's representation entirely if two strong candidates knock each other out. Fairly likely to happen in the FW community this time around.

I agree with you Snow Axe, the STV (Single Transferrable Vote) variant proposed by Trebor was too easily gamed and was probably a bad idea. I understand he was trying to get the benefit of STV without causing CCP to do a lot of work to revise the voting infrastructure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

Low Quota (Droop Quota) STV works well in elections where only one position is at stake or in parliamentary system where the goal is to allow a majority party or coalition of parties to gain a majority and be able to govern with a more unified voice.

As the CSM is more of a focus group than a governing body, I would argue that CSM needs diversity. So if STV is to be considered it should be with a higher quota. Perhaps the Hare Quota, or even treat all votes for winning candidates as fulfilled. The CSM7 is more diverse than most of it's predecessors and still gets called out for not representing the playerbase. This isn't to disenfranchise voters; large blocs deserve a seat at the table, but a crowding out smaller interests would not be as helpful for helping guide the development of EVE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_quota

I also agree with Poetic (*GASP*), that the more important and effective thing would be to find ways to increase voter participation. (Don't advocate forced voting, however; random clicks in lieu of an abstention does no one any good.)

Also support the idea that the CSM should elect ALL of its officers including the Chairman from within its ranks. Officers should always be eligible for going to the summit.

Oh and as always: a None of the Above to allow people to cast a vote against the whole group of candidates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_of_the_above

No *decisions* will be made about any voting system changes without involving the community. In the end, it is CCP's decision to make, but without buy in from the community it would be a bad idea.

some people think that certain regions are being cruelly suppressed by 0.0

so this is thread where they can registered those complaints to two step

the non-0.0 candidate who received the most votes out of anyone currently on the CSM

Precisely. FW got an able and valuable CSM member because they rallied around a single candidate. If people who focus on a single aspect of the game want to get a candidate on the CSM, then that's what they need to do.

Give the low barrier to entry (you only need a candidate who is more plausible thatn Darius III), I'd say that it's reasonable to assume that any fraction of the game that doesn't do this simply isn't motivated enough to. That is, their concerns aren't as deeply felt. CSM 6 was 0.0 heavy because 0.0 focused collectively felt that their part of the game was in danger of collapsing, so they did something about it. "Hi-sec" doesn't feel the same urgency, almost certainly because hi-sec has received a lot of dev attention in the last couple of years, and simply doesn't suffer any issues as serious as the ones that provoked the 0.0-heavy CSM.