These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Jita Park Speakers Corner

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Should We Limit the Number of Candidates?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-01-20 23:58:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Poetic Stanziel
from http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.ca/2013/01/csm-elections-should-we-limit-number-of.html

Talk of educating players on the voting process, thereby (hopefully) increasing voter turnout was a discussion had back in September 2012. Back when Trebor made his voting reform post on the EVE Online forums.

The conversation has begun anew, now that the CSM8 campaign season is underway, and after the release of the Winter Summit transcripts (which included a session on voting.)

I wrote about the issue. The last paragraph of that post details a short description of what might be easily done by CCP to help rectify the situation.

I wonder though about the number of candidates. Last election, CSM7, there were forty candidates. If some in-game interface presented a player with that many candidates (and a paragraph or two about their beliefs and platform), would that not turn voters off? "OMG! So many words! Abstain! Abstain! Abstain!"

Should we, somehow, limit the number of candidates? Perhaps to thirty? Maybe as low as twenty-five.

If it is agreed that this is an idea worth pursuing, how might be limit the candidates?

Becoming a candidate for CSM7 required 100 likes on their campaign forum post. That turned out to be fairly trivial. And the process was mocked by the players as being a pointless exercise.

What if the forum likes system was used as a form of pre-voting? A primary, so to speak. The thirty most-liked campaign posts become official candidates. It stands to some reason that if you cannot garner enough likes to be in the top thirty, your chances of winning a seat are going to be reasonably slim. There doesn't seem to be any benefit to loading down the campaign roster with forty, fifty, or sixty people. If our aim is to promote voting, then overloading those who would normally ignore CSM elections would likely cause them to continue to ignore the process. Should it not be the aim to make the election process as accessible as possible?

I want to read your thoughts, as always.
Arronicus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2 - 2013-01-21 02:09:16 UTC
I don't see the point of an arbitrary cap placed on the number of candidates, if the candidates can recieve a pre-determined amount of sponsors. Perhaps 100 locked in actual votes, or something. As part of the candidacy process, you would be required to get 100 votes committed to you. Since each account can only vote once, this would prevent an alliance from getting the same 100 accounts to like the post of 10 or 20 different applicants.

As long as they have shown there is at least that many people willing to vote for them, I dont think there should be a cutoff on candidate total, just as long as the same number of winners results. What will result is that candidates who share similar views on issues will have to reccomend their voters to vote for the other party, and withdraw, or they will fight amongst eachother for votes, and neither will be represented. A survival of the fittest, and best represented.
admiral root
Red Galaxy
#3 - 2013-01-21 02:50:56 UTC
They already limit the candidates by having the minimum likes requirement.

No, your rights end in optimal+2*falloff
Tesal
#4 - 2013-01-21 02:56:59 UTC
A lot of people don't read the forums so using anything in the forums to exclude a candidate would potentially exclude an otherwise valid candidate. The number of candidates doesn't seem to be a problem.
Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#5 - 2013-01-21 07:30:13 UTC
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2013-01-21 07:35:54 UTC
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.
Vera Algaert
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2013-01-21 08:09:07 UTC
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.

As Kelduum has already pointed out in your blog's comments - it would be trivial for organized groups to upvote horrible candidates in an effort to split the high-sec/carebear/wormhole/low-sec/whatever... vote (or just to troll).

This already happened last year and would be much worse if the number of candidates were limited,.

.
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2013-01-21 08:25:11 UTC
Vera Algaert wrote:
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.

As Kelduum has already pointed out in your blog's comments - it would be trivial for organized groups to upvote horrible candidates in an effort to split the high-sec/carebear/wormhole/low-sec/whatever... vote (or just to troll).

This already happened last year and would be much worse if the number of candidates were limited,.
I think the reverse would happen.

I think someone like Mynnna, who knows he is going to be on the council, and likely the chair, is not concerned about competition, because he has no competition. I believe he would prefer to work with strong and capable candidates. If anything, Goonswarm would be directed to upvote candidates from all areas of space that he'd like to work with, to get a strong group of candidates together, rather than a weak group. The strong group does not affect his election chances.
Kainotomiu Ronuken
koahisquad
#9 - 2013-01-21 10:44:25 UTC
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.

Regardless of whether or not they dominated the election process, they could very well dominate a 'liking' one if only the top X candidates were to be voted on. Everyone has a minimum of three likes per post, more if you have more accounts, and you can like as many posts as you want. An organised group of a few thousand players could easily make it so that the candidates with most likes were all those whom nobody in their right mind would vote for.
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2013-01-21 10:55:40 UTC
Kainotomiu Ronuken wrote:
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.

Regardless of whether or not they dominated the election process, they could very well dominate a 'liking' one if only the top X candidates were to be voted on. Everyone has a minimum of three likes per post, more if you have more accounts, and you can like as many posts as you want. An organised group of a few thousand players could easily make it so that the candidates with most likes were all those whom nobody in their right mind would vote for.
I think the reverse would happen.

I think someone like Mynnna, who knows he is going to be on the council, and likely the chair, is not concerned about competition, because he has no competition. I believe he would prefer to work with strong and capable candidates. If anything, Goonswarm would be directed to upvote candidates from all areas of space that he'd like to work with, to get a strong group of candidates together, rather than a weak group. The strong group does not affect his election chances.
Kainotomiu Ronuken
koahisquad
#11 - 2013-01-21 12:10:37 UTC
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
I think the reverse would happen.

I think someone like Mynnna, who knows he is going to be on the council, and likely the chair, is not concerned about competition, because he has no competition. I believe he would prefer to work with strong and capable candidates. If anything, Goonswarm would be directed to upvote candidates from all areas of space that he'd like to work with, to get a strong group of candidates together, rather than a weak group. The strong group does not affect his election chances.

I think that it would be foolish for CCP to design an election process that only works if HBC and CFC do as CCP expects.
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2013-01-21 12:24:19 UTC
Kainotomiu Ronuken wrote:
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
I think the reverse would happen.

I think someone like Mynnna, who knows he is going to be on the council, and likely the chair, is not concerned about competition, because he has no competition. I believe he would prefer to work with strong and capable candidates. If anything, Goonswarm would be directed to upvote candidates from all areas of space that he'd like to work with, to get a strong group of candidates together, rather than a weak group. The strong group does not affect his election chances.

I think that it would be foolish for CCP to design an election process that only works if HBC and CFC do as CCP expects.
Fair enough. Smile
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#13 - 2013-01-21 13:00:29 UTC
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Kainotomiu Ronuken wrote:
Poetic Stanziel wrote:
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Organised groups will dominate the selection process just like they dominate the election process.
You should explain to me how they dominate the election process? CFC ran a single candidate for CSM7. It would appear that they plan to back only a single candidate for CSM8.

It looks to me like they know that dominating the council has no purpose. All they need is a single strong, intelligent representative.

Regardless of whether or not they dominated the election process, they could very well dominate a 'liking' one if only the top X candidates were to be voted on. Everyone has a minimum of three likes per post, more if you have more accounts, and you can like as many posts as you want. An organised group of a few thousand players could easily make it so that the candidates with most likes were all those whom nobody in their right mind would vote for.
I think the reverse would happen.

I think someone like Mynnna, who knows he is going to be on the council, and likely the chair, is not concerned about competition, because he has no competition. I believe he would prefer to work with strong and capable candidates. If anything, Goonswarm would be directed to upvote candidates from all areas of space that he'd like to work with, to get a strong group of candidates together, rather than a weak group. The strong group does not affect his election chances.


This time, maybe. Goonswarm might perhaps adopt different tactics if different mechanics were in place...

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Rengerel en Distel
#14 - 2013-01-21 15:53:36 UTC
If they're really going to redo the whole web interface for voting, it's easy enough to limit it to the top 30 or so candidates beyond the "like" phase. Each name could be a link to their CSM voting thread. Hopefully they allow a council vote, and not just one person one vote, and we'll get a better council. (That might favor bloc candidates, but i don't care)

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.