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You really DON'T have a clue as to how this all works, do you.

The minute the CSM fails to be of use to CCP is the minute it ceases to exist. The more practical benefit we provide the company, the longer we preserve our ability to operate and serve as the voice of the people. CSM7 has elevated the status of the institution internally by making ourselves too useful to ignore, and its now up to CSM8 to carry that momentum into their term as well.

Especially with a new EP entering the picture at some point in 2013, its all the more critical that we prove our value to as wide a cross-section of the company as possible. Otherwise, new management may decide that an expensive handful of ragey players that can't channel their energy into anything more constructive than ranting on forums or skype isn't worth the effort.

No, you're once again acting like a butt-hurt baby that's mad because this story you've been trying to weave for over 6 months now about a useless CSM7 is unravelling before your very eyes, despite all best efforts to "educate" the public about our collective failings.

And in the absence of being able to call us all useless, you're trying to take down anyone you can possibly still get hooks into (Have you given up on the "terrible trebor" narrative so soon?). The bottom line is that Seleene has never been AWOL during any of these critical periods, and continues to be our primary point of contact with the company. He's the reason we've landed so many meetings with CCP Unifex, this entire Stakeholdership push to begin with was his brainchild and he's seen it through to successful completion.

Just because he hasn't had the time this year (due to changing RL responsbilities) to go around whoring himself to the media does not mean that he's been an ineffective Chairman. By all means, keep attempting to convince everyone you're in a better position than someone who's worked alongside him to report on Seleene's actviities, but everyone knows your shtick by now and you sound ridiculous when you get this worked up into a froth.

Yes the CSM does need to be of use to CCP.

But it more importantly need to be of use to the players.

There is very little point having a player elected council, if it is more concerned with being of use to CCP, than it is of being of use to the players.

The CSM is more in danger of being useless to CCP, if it fails to be the voice of the players, than it does by being another internal CCP group.

CCP has internal working bodies to assess its own work, the value of the CSM is to express how the community as a whole will respond to the changes and too communicate with the Community as a whole.

I mean why would anyone vote for a CSM that is a part of CCP and not actually our voice, the CSM is meant to work with CCP as the voice of the people, not work for CCP and not communicate with the players.

As I said "This has been CSM7s biggest failing, they forgot who they actually work for."

That's ridiculous. It would be incredibly irresponsible to decide that because there's only a week left, our job doesnt matter and that there's nothing more to be done. You tried to spin that story, too, a couple months ago at the beginning of the CSM8 elections, declaring CSM7's time to have come to a close. In addition to all of the work that's transpired since than, today, drafts of the information that will be revealed in some of the Fanfest presentations regarding several critical features of the Odyssey expansion that haven't even been revealed yet were posted internally. The CSM have pounced on it with feedback via our various channels, just like we have all year.

Simply put, "not worrying about it" would be dropping the ball and failing the player community, and leaving some massively consequential game changes to CCP's whim. Literally the only reason for you to actively encourage the CSM to not do their jobs right now is give yourself one last thing to complain about later.

So if you are the voice of the players and not just a pile of CCP sell outs, as it appears to others.

How about a little transparency? Who in CSM7 was for the STV system that CCP wanted and who was actually against it?

Did the CSM actually put up a fight against a system the players as a majority (See voting reform discussions) did not want or did the CSM just do as CCP wanted, not putting up a fight?

As to "The fact that we represented the players is made explicitly clear by multiple contributors to the blog", now personally I would be concerned if an employer was singing the praise of a union more than the employees were.

Good thing you have nothing to be concerned about. This is by far the most extensive set of CCP comments we've heard about the CSM all year, and it pales in comparison to the collective feedback provided by the player base. We've enjoyed far, far more compliments from the community that we'll ever receive from CCP - and its THAT feedback we value the most, because you're the reason we put the time and effort in to begin with.

Well this is eve.

It's really easy, actually - you just haven't been paying attention every other time this has been discussed. No matter how much everyone enjoys sensationalizing the story for political purposes (CSM "activism" sells really well!), the fact remains that the CSM was told, in no uncertain terms, that POS improvements were going to happen in the summer expansion. We'd been in talks with them about the importance of POS improvements since the beginning of our term, and we'd already told them that NOT working on POS's in the summer was unacceptable no matter how you slice it. CCP admitted in the summit that while they weren't going to be doing the full modular POS system, the abysmal current state of POS's had been made clear to them and that they would be addressing it directly. Two step had his constituency to consider, and felt he was doing his responsibility to push the issue regardless of the fact that we'd already obtained the commitment from CCP that we sought.

But did the threadnought change a goddamn thing other than tie up CCP's staff for a couple days trying to calm everyone down out of panic mode? Nope, the outcome was the same. But because it felt good, and was the closest thing to the Jita-shooting spirit we'd seen in CSM6's term, it's going to continue to be put on a pedestal and worshiped as a hero story by those that believe in the "activist" model irregardless of whether it was actually the reason POS improvements made it into Odyssey.

If you think the CSM's job is to counter CCP at every step of the way, you're crazy. If Two step had wanted to go "against the wishes of CCP" he would have had to ask them NOT to work on POS's at all. There are times when CCP acquiesces and gives the CSM what its asking for, and in my opinion these are the least appropriate times to try to strongarm them further. I'd personally much rather reward CCP's cooperation than punish it. Two step meant well, and has been a tireless advocate for the players, and this doesnt reflect poorly on him in the long run.

We simply disagreed at the time on how to best handle the situation, and since than the facts of the story have continued to be heavily politicized by various groups who like to use the threadnought story to make a point.

Do you think feedback only comes in blogs? What about the various podcasts where I have heard good things? What about people mailing the CSM members? In game chat? Bloggers will use anything to generate hits and controversy is usually a good way to do that. What better way to do that then rip into a high profile target like the CSM.

The bias in this post is so obvious. You go out of your way to try and belittle the CSM everywhere on these forums, and this is just another example.

The fact that you have lots of unverifiable praise but are unable to point to any praise from the blogging community speaks volumes.