Jita Park Speakers Corner

No, not really. It's more like would you like to have eyes which somewhat work and will be improved with surgery, or to not have eyes.

The CSM isn't perfect, and CCP's interaction with it is much less so. But it has improved significantly since its inception, and CSMs over the years have gotten more boisterous and demanding of positive change. Ending the CSM makes absolutely no sense. Giving it more powers, electing more active members, and demanding more accountability from CCP does, but ending the CSM is not a prerequisite to make the CSM more powerful.

A CSM that exists but serves me nothing, is indistinguishable from a CSM that does not exist. "Ask the CSM and all your problems will be the bloody same" makes a really poor selling line...

But, usefulness aside, my main gripe with the CSM is of representativeness. In any self proclaimed democracy, being elected by less than 14% of the potential electorate would be considered a joke. And I wonder why CCP btohers to get such a skewed sample of popular capsuleeers when they're supposed to look for stakeholders and unpaid testers/counselors.

Just to set the appropiate background...

- I've voted in the last 3 CSM elections
- in the last one, I actually voted for you
- If possible, I will vote in the next election

Yet I still haven't got a single ounce of benefit from voting. Hasn't spared losing stuff i liked and hasn't improved the game for me, it never made a difference to have this or that guy i voted at the CSM, which I don't blame on them, anyway. But I seriously doubt that i represent a mere 1/14th of the population and so deserve that there is only one candidate who supposedly speaks for me and achieves nothing after dealing with the other 13 CSM and CCP.

In terms of getting a better EVE for me, voting the CSM is in the same order of performance as lighting devotional candles to saints... but that doesn't means that i want to get rid of it.

It's hugely better to be one eyed than blind.

The CSM have a damb difficult job to do, and on the whole, they do it pretty well; but the cards we are dealt are the ones we can play. Every CSM has - to extend the metaphor - arranged for the succeeding CSM to be dealt a few more, slightly better cards, and every year, the new CSM plays for higher stakes than the last. CSM8 has no intention of being the first CSM to break that trend. Indeed, I feel fairly confident that we will if anything accelerate it.

Nevertheless, the CSM operate within limits that you are either too stubborn to admit you are aware of, or simply too immature to admit they exist. Whichever it is, your sullen petulance that CCP has decided not to prioritise one aspect of the game that you personally are interested in is by no means a basis for objectively evaluating the CSM. You're a spoiled child whining that Santa didn't bring her a pony so therefore you hate christmas and no one else should get a present.

Get over yourself and grow up, and stop insulting people who are working hard to get the best result for you that they can.

I wouldn't worry too much about that, CCP would be aware of that and in addition to that they would be aware that the opinions expressed are likely to be from the extremes rather than being balanced. It is important to consider what credibility a source actually has rather than considering the credibility the source purports to have - professionals have to deal with those issues regularly.
All things concerning the game and surrounding community should always be up for debate, you raise some good points about the CSM and identify some issues. I think some members of the CSM then validate the idea of their ineffectiveness in the overly defensive and unconstructive way that they have responded, these people have to be capable of being constructive and considered even about their own roles if they are going to be useful and must be capable of interacting with players in a reasonable way (even if the opposite is not always true).

Representation is always a difficult thing, the Athenian style lottery is probably the best way of managing political ambition but as with the real world being seen to be democratic is often more important than actually being so. Eve does strike me as a situation where selection by CCP would be a better idea than election by the community at least for the focus group job. The whiff of placebo is always apparent within this system and that is understandable.

It is never a bad idea to try and consider things from the other side of the fence. Given the sort of ambition expressed by the CSM you have to wonder what sort of impact that actually has on the freedom of the developers to be creative and inventive if a situation exists where 'how much will they moan' is put above 'is this good for the game'. We already see that a lot of creativity and energy is actually being directed into other projects like Valkyrie whilst Eve is only really being tinkered with - although it is a bit of stretch to blame the CSM for that.
Political input into software development has a history of being incredibly expensive and producing non existent or barely functional systems that are almost immediately scrapped. The CSM seem to have an aim of achieving a greater role in the development of the game but seem to give little consideration as to whether that would be a good thing.
That is not to say that the CSM is evil or that its members are idiots but there does seem a distinct lack of interest in evaluating what their role is and what risks they introduce and how they can be managed, good intentions can be complex to translate into a good effect.
There is scope to suggest that the CSM working to both represent the community and being the focus group is not entirely satisfactory. Perhaps there could be alternatives to the current situation where the CSM may perhaps have an answer but cant tell anyone, it does represent a conflict of interest which inevitably dents the confidence the community can have as clearly they are also working for CCP. The benefits of having a clearly transparent system are worth consideration.



For POS's, which seems to be part of the original complaint, you shouldn't be looking for any attempt to fix the existing system. Reading half the identified issues should make you realise that it should be completely scrapped as fixing it would take far too much time. Unfortunately that would mean starting from scratch which also takes time and I think it would be reasonable to see something developed and introduced gradually over time whilst the old system is still used in the meantime. Similar with Corp mechanics etc.. but it is also reasonable for CCP to not make public any longer term development goals as that risks false expectations.




Accepting something unacceptable is unacceptable always looks better than promoting it as an achievement. Why is your response in no way acknowledging that awareness and community participation needs to be increased since it is absolutely fundamental to the function of the CSM.

Give me what I want. You'll be happier and EVE will live longer.

The only real way to get rid of me on an issue is to stop being a lost cause, and EVE has got plenty of them. Actually EVE itself has been a lost cause since Incarnageddon, and the first outlook on the Hallelujah Plan has got me excited about how lost is going to be EVE in the next years.

I don't want to get rid of the CSM. But in my view it is failing to forward key issues because of a severe misrepresentation of player sensibilites. The better organized and more vocal get more representation, the less organized and silent get nothing.

CCP are so inmensely cunning, that they turn the ability to warn CCP of upcoming disasters into a privilege... and then they can't even take full advantage of it.

As for solutions, how about fixed seats and electing candidates to each seat? (a CSM for industry, another for sovereignty/nullsec, another for PvE, et cetera). Would be up to CCP to determine how many "ministers/secretaries" they need and what areas of competence should they have, but doing so after a comprehensive active demographical prospection of the game would be very adviseable.

Don't wait for players to talk. Engage them actively through personal interviews, reward them with a PLEX for their time, and learn what the horse thinks straight from the horse's mouth.

Just 2ç off the top of my head.

She did not get her pony.

Then why do they take money from people who don't vote?

We can't force people to care. But they fact that they don't doesn't mean I shouldn't either.