Jita Park Speakers Corner

I asked this once on minerbumping and got no response that I'm aware of, but I'll ask again:
Can you point out to me where in James 315's "platform" he supports your statement here? James does not seem to be for reducing hi-sec reward alone, but reducing hi-sec reward and increasing risk.

Is risk and reward equal across all of high sec or all of low sec or all of null?

Are risk and reward actually related?

What would be a more appropriate name for high security space if it wasn't highly secure?

Aaaand James has dropped out of the CSM race.

An awful lot of hot air on the blog that basically translates to he doesn't want to risk a non-Icelandic seat that came with an NDA.

He'd rather sit on Minerbumping and ***** about how CCP is killing his PVP sandbox. Lol.

Because engaging the community in a daily updated blog is a bad thing.

Great leaders don't necessarily have to get in office to do good, though they would no doubt make good representatives. Think Martin Luther King jr.

It's not like it was a secret that CSMs have to agree to sign an NDA; indeed, it's pretty much the whole point of the CSM that they work with NDA material.

The members of CSM 7 made it pretty clear that all the CSM can attend meetings via video conferencing or at least voice. I agree that it's preferrable to be there in person, but that's hardly being "excluded".

Before, when the 7 attending members were the top 7 voters, you'd be 100% right. Now, when CCP is essentially directly choosing 5 of the 7 seats themselves, I think asking yourself whether or not they'd value your opinion at all - if they truly did, why wouldn't they have picked you?

There's no solid answer to that, of course, but it's a very valid question to ask, particularly when it's in relation to signing a year of your time away for unpaid work.

You see "afraid", I see "not worth the downsides if he can't get Top 2". Potato-Potatoe I guess.

If I remember my maths then in a 14 person team there are 91 lines of communication, if it’s just 7 then they internally only have 21 lines of communication, the smaller group can be much more effective. Making the team ever smaller improves this further but there is a point where you cannot maintain quality and reduce size. At that point if I wanted to make that group even more effective then I would change its makeup, make it more focussed.

If the intention were to focus on new players over the next year then it won’t help CCP to talk to seven people who have played for ten years. If the intention is to develop wormhole space then it's not going to be useful for them to talk to seven Hi-sec care bears. That is not to say that in any case wild card opinions should be entirely excluded but there is little point in having a focus group that is irrelevant. It should never be the case that the CSM is useless to CCP, it is not meant to be a one sided relationship.
CCP will always decide what is possible and what is reasonable, CCP cannot tell us what they are thinking or share the information that drives their decisions - such things are commercially sensitive. We therefore cannot make entirely informed decisions when voting; it makes sense in this case that CCP makes the best of what we offer them. Ultimately the CSM is part of a development process. The classic cartoon is http://keremkosaner.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/softwaredevelopment.gif and CCP have to take some steps to overcome those problems. By selecting the most 'useful' of the candidates we put forward CCP are able to mitigate the problem in the first cell. Our aim is to get to the last cell, not to make a stand for the principles of democracy.
You should also remember that CCP will consider the people that are entirely absent from the process, the CSM is not the only source of input for the development process. I think James would be foaming at the mouth if he ever realised that.

James seems to make clear that he considers his organisation to be an ego massage device. We can see here on these forums that there are plenty of vocal members of his organisation eloquent enough to maintain its ramblings in his absence; the only difference would be that he wasn’t the centre of attention. As for the NDA it seems hard not to be bound by one and be on the internet these days, as with any agreement it services both sides, they do provide certain restrictions but it is perfectly possible to express yourself without breaching them. James seems to complain that he would be unable to post publically if he doesn’t like something that is in development, as if he hasn’t realised the point of the position or the constraints of how it has to work.
He attempts to claim that making no difference at all is better than making some, with that attitude it is clear that a vote for him would have been a waste anyway so by stepping aside he has at least made it more likely that his supporters will have some representation.