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CSM Minutes: The future

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Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#21 - 2013-12-28 19:45:45 UTC
Well said all.

Balancing the needs and wants of everyone is not an easy thing.

Think CCP is trolling all the people that made release bets based on year. Hopefully we will see them before 2013 ends.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#22 - 2013-12-28 20:11:35 UTC
Ali Aras wrote:
So yeah, that's part of why we have one. Malc is also right about the market though.


No, he isn't.

CCP wanting to have critical features/ideas released in an actual dev blog in a controlled fashion has nothing to do with the wallets of speculators (which is what Malcanis erroneously proposed).

It has to do with having control over the presentation of the feature/change so that it can't be falsely interpreted, taken out of context, exaggerated, etc.

In comparison, the idea that these discussions are withheld until dev blogs are put out because it would have some "negative impact on the market" is so bogus it is actually insulting.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#23 - 2013-12-28 20:26:51 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
Ali Aras wrote:
So yeah, that's part of why we have one. Malc is also right about the market though.


No, he isn't.

CCP wanting to have critical features/ideas released in an actual dev blog in a controlled fashion has nothing to do with the wallets of speculators (which is what Malcanis erroneously proposed).

It has to do with having control over the presentation of the feature/change so that it can't be falsely interpreted, taken out of context, exaggerated, etc.

In comparison, the idea that these discussions are withheld until dev blogs are put out because it would have some "negative impact on the market" is so bogus it is actually insulting.

Everything effects the market in some way.
CCP Dolan is more interested in fair release of the material, such as making it available to more people at the same time, and as he said in the hangout he know as the "fun police" in CCP because of his anti- obscure location release stance. Twitter and other locations should not be used according to him.

Patch information for Chaos is a stronger indication and most of the markets big players use that information more then random speculation.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#24 - 2013-12-28 20:39:50 UTC
That's a gross exaggeration, though.

If you are that paranoid about market speculation -- I'm sure CSM members themselves have speculated on the markets that they know will improve.

Sure, they sign an NDA but it's impossible to prove and even impossible to "pretend" you don't know something that you do. The NDA prevents them from telling other people about it. It doesn't prevent them from putting up buy/sell orders on the market.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#25 - 2013-12-28 20:49:32 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
That's a gross exaggeration, though.

If you are that paranoid about market speculation -- I'm sure CSM members themselves have speculated on the markets that they know will improve.

Sure, they sign an NDA but it's impossible to prove and even impossible to "pretend" you don't know something that you do. The NDA prevents them from telling other people about it. It doesn't prevent them from putting up buy/sell orders on the market.

The NDA does not but they audit all CSM and dev characters plus alts for any purchases in those items that they know will soon be changed. Anyone taking advantage in any way looses their job/ access.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#26 - 2013-12-28 20:51:51 UTC
The audit thing is cute, but if there is one thing you can't stop it's the flow of information.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#27 - 2013-12-28 20:57:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Salpun
Pinky Hops wrote:
The audit thing is cute, but if there is one thing you can't stop it's the flow of information.

True but if there is a spike in trade of an item that has been released with a new value to the CSM or the devs prior to general info release those transactions become suspect. In a system with full tracking and info saved this is possible.

Traders dont just buy stuff in the quantities that move markets on a whim.

We are getting off topic here though.

Minutes are historical documents.

CCP goes on the record with there underlining philosophy for a change and answers/ responds to CSM worries about a change.

-Missing is a record outside the closed forum threads and Skype about CSM's daily activites over the year. CSM members blog posts help for the people that read those but its not official.

CSM wants to show what they have done and show that they stood up to bad ideas by the devs. Prove their records to the people that voted for them plus prove there worth.

-CCP does not talk about the ideas that CSM shoots down so its hard to track that.

Players want a say on every issue plus see what will happen in the future. They also want to see the effectiveness of the CSM and what each member does.

A lessons learned plus minutes content rules document will be a good step in the right direction as long as everyone gets to argue it out.

CCP Dolan has this document is work for the winter minutes.

He hopes to have it out to the CSM and the community once he is back in Iceland.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#28 - 2013-12-28 21:23:58 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
Ali Aras wrote:
So yeah, that's part of why we have one. Malc is also right about the market though.


No, he isn't.

CCP wanting to have critical features/ideas released in an actual dev blog in a controlled fashion has nothing to do with the wallets of speculators (which is what Malcanis erroneously proposed).

It has to do with having control over the presentation of the feature/change so that it can't be falsely interpreted, taken out of context, exaggerated, etc.

In comparison, the idea that these discussions are withheld until dev blogs are put out because it would have some "negative impact on the market" is so bogus it is actually insulting.


It's part of the reason, and it's also a big simplification. There can also be other in game effects than on the market. (Moons spring to mind here)

And as you correctly say, so that partial, incomplete or not-yet-finalised decisions aren't seized on as set in stone.

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

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Kinis Deren
Mosquito Squadron
D0GS OF WAR
#29 - 2013-12-29 02:24:34 UTC
Ali Aras wrote:
. I'll reiterate the question: What do the minutes do for you? What should they do in the future?


From a personal perspective, any meeting minutes should be a succint summary that allows a regular player obtain an overview on develpoment direction and FOTM contentious issues. My free time is limited and I'd prefer to spend it playing the game, rather than wading through dozens of pages of minutes.

I fully appreciate that much of what is discussed will be under NDA. I believe the minutes should not try to pad out items under this heading. My impression is that most, if not all NDA material, will not have any influence on my game play (at the time of minutes publication) and therefore is irrelevant to my immediate needs as a player.

I'm not interested in the fluff that has crept into the summit minutes during CSM7 tenure. I'm not interested in who on the CSM supported/objected to a particular point, or if a CSM'er cracked a joke, had technical difficulties & other irrelevancies.

Since the summit consists of a series of meetings, has any consideration been given to releasing the miniutes, following CCP approval, on an individual meeting basis? This might prevent the log jam scenario which seems to follow every summit.
EI Digin
irc.zulusquad.org
#30 - 2013-12-29 03:40:25 UTC
Ali Aras wrote:
Re NDAs: CCP Rise made an offhand comment in an AMA about considering looking into changing the web bonuses on Serpentis ships. He was just sorta speculating, like the devs often do in CSM/CCP channels. It spawned a threadnaught in which someone suggested carpetbombing CCP's headquarters.

So yeah, that's part of why we have one. Malc is also right about the market though.

On a related note, CCP Dolan said on the hangout yesterday that he's considering in the next iteration of minutes *not* calling out specific CCPers by name, unless those CCPers are obviously a face of the company in order to minimize witch-hunting. For example, say CCP Ytterbium puts forth an unpopular proposal-- maybe good, maybe bad-- which represents the opinion of all of Game Design, agreed upon in dozens of meetings. But his name is on the minutes, and so a bunch of people on the forums start personally shitting on him in ways ranging from mean to actually scary. That's not fair, it's not helpful, and it's harmful to the CCP/playerbase relationship as well as the CCP/CSM relationship.

Meanwhile, someone like CCP Seagull would be called out by name, as she's at the level where she *is* a face for the company, and furthermore, can set policy for the game as a whole.
Witch hunting will occur no matter what happens. Someone will always be angry at your decisions no matter what they are. And people will always make things ridiculously personal. It's just a fact of life when you're a controversial figure on the internet. People who take things too far should be dealt with by the wonderful moderators we have here on the forums, or even better, ignored. If you take trolling personally, well you're going to have a bad time, and the only way you're going to survive this community is to HTFU.

Don't you think that the response by the community albeit harsh at times may have some decent valid points that may need addressing that may have not been brought up by the CSM?

Isn't it better that the criticism be handled in the planning phases, and not the weeks-before-release "Sorry it's too late to change anything, we have to ram this through" stage?

Are you willing to throw away valid criticism because of bad apples? Should all CCP to playerbase communications be filtered through the CSM?
Ishtanchuk Fazmarai
#31 - 2013-12-29 13:50:01 UTC
Ali Aras wrote:
Re NDAs: CCP Rise made an offhand comment in an AMA about considering looking into changing the web bonuses on Serpentis ships. He was just sorta speculating, like the devs often do in CSM/CCP channels. It spawned a threadnaught in which someone suggested carpetbombing CCP's headquarters.

So yeah, that's part of why we have one. Malc is also right about the market though.

On a related note, CCP Dolan said on the hangout yesterday that he's considering in the next iteration of minutes *not* calling out specific CCPers by name, unless those CCPers are obviously a face of the company in order to minimize witch-hunting. For example, say CCP Ytterbium puts forth an unpopular proposal-- maybe good, maybe bad-- which represents the opinion of all of Game Design, agreed upon in dozens of meetings. But his name is on the minutes, and so a bunch of people on the forums start personally shitting on him in ways ranging from mean to actually scary. That's not fair, it's not helpful, and it's harmful to the CCP/playerbase relationship as well as the CCP/CSM relationship.

Meanwhile, someone like CCP Seagull would be called out by name, as she's at the level where she *is* a face for the company, and furthermore, can set policy for the game as a whole.


I've been giving some thought to this point and I am not sure on wether it would work as intended.

CCP developers likely get a higher degree of exposure from the forums than from the minutes, and so it's more likely that a developer X gets flak when he discusses at the forums than in a place such as the minutes.

If anything, opposition to ideas should be pointed at those who can change them.

Let's say that a deccision maker wants to nerf the new Marauders, and the task is given to a developer. Players should know that the right door to knock with the pitchforks and torches it's that of the "decisison" dev and not that of the "grunt" dev. The "grunt" dev is going to take a lot of flak on the *details* of the idea, but people opposing the very decission should have a way to convey that opposition, preferably in a clear and civil manner, to the level where it can be weighted/analzyed/resolved and eventually dismissed.

Every business needs a way to deal with disgruntled customers, and CCP makes an awful job at that by turning objection into a hard earned privilege.

Roses are red / Violets are blue / I am an Alpha / And so it's you
Savel
Lazerhawks
L A Z E R H A W K S
#32 - 2014-01-02 21:34:43 UTC
The fact the minutes for the summer just came out is unacceptable, it prevents players from having any idea what is actually going on with the CSM during said sessions. Did the guy I vote for do anything? I understand and respect that an NDA is needed to preserve many aspects of the game, but having a review process which takes months upon months prevents the player base form being able to gain nearly as much use from them. If you talk about something in the meeting and then I see a dev blog about it before I see minutes on the meeting that is an issue.

Having someone from CCP take notes would be a wonderful idea as they can quickly write, NDA next to notes which pertain to NDA information. That way when the write up is done, those areas can be quickly removed and speed up the process. Or even when you talk about something which is an NDA topic have some way of making it more evident. This allows the CSM to do much of the review job and the publication will come faster.

In companies I have worked for in the past if a meeting has a few parts and some are NDA and other aren't we separate them allow for quicker progression through. Maybe this could work by having the desired topics reviewed before. While I understand meetings can flow from a non NDA to NDA topic quickly it would allow the CSM to do much more of the lifting on getting things approved and allow the meeting notes to be published much faster.

I don't know what the current review process for the different notes look like inside CCP, but as a player I would love to see things happen a lot faster in the future. If that means setting a hard deadline internally for them to be published and a deadline for the CSM to get the notes to CCP I would be fine with that but hearing the representatives not have any clue when they were going to be published was insanely frustrating.
Ali Aras
Nobody in Local
Deepwater Hooligans
#33 - 2014-01-02 22:17:01 UTC
Savel wrote:
The fact the minutes for the summer just came out is unacceptable, it prevents players from having any idea what is actually going on with the CSM during said sessions. Did the guy I vote for do anything? I understand and respect that an NDA is needed to preserve many aspects of the game, but having a review process which takes months upon months prevents the player base form being able to gain nearly as much use from them. If you talk about something in the meeting and then I see a dev blog about it before I see minutes on the meeting that is an issue.

So, we're not going to be able to get you *instant* feedback. Like, the best case for minutes release right now is "around two weeks after the summit". During the summit, there's really not any time for it.

That said, yeah, this one was too long. That's why the thread-- we're working on how to make it faster next time, and a lot of that is going to involve in some way revising the way the minutes work while preserving their essential functions.

I've been reading this thread but not posting; will reply to others later tonight but wanted to get this one out of the way quickly.

http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog
Snow Axe
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#34 - 2014-01-02 23:44:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Snow Axe
I was saving any potential criticism until the minutes themselves were released, but actually seeing them at this point is an embarrassment.

Just for reference, CSM 7's summer minutes were 165 pages long and were written, approved and released within 2 months of the last day of the summit (June 1st to August 2nd). The winter minutes, at a more comparable 116 pages, were written, approved and released in just over a month (14th December to 16th January).

76 pages long and you couldn't even get it WRITTEN within 2 months? Nearly 2 more months to approve? Why not just rename this thread to "**** the minutes, we don't want to do this **** anymore"?. It'd at least be an accurate reflection of what's going on.

"Look any reason why you need to talk like that? I have now reported you. I dont need to listen to your bad tone. If you cant have a grown up conversation then leave the thread["
Billy Hix
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#35 - 2014-01-03 01:52:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Billy Hix
Malcanis wrote:


This analysis pre-supposes that CCP and the players have no common interest.

Would you care to justify that supposition?


Incarna.

We all remember the fights that went on when the CSM wouldn't sign off on the minutes because of the way CCP tried to, er.....lets say 'massage' the message.

When things are going well then both sides will be able to work really well together regardless of the system used. The problem is the next time CCP and the CSM see things VERY differently. Because of NDAs, really the CSMs only defence is to refuse to sign off.

Saying that, as long as the meetings are recorded, if CCP try to spin the 'short notes' version too much the CSM can fight back with the long form later on. IMHO we do need the long form, but I see no harm in a short form instant update sort of release too.

I also totally agree with Dolan. Don't use the CCP devs name unless they specifically state they are happy to have their name attached. That way we still get all the info but CCP don't get as much individual grief. Shouting at a named Dev or just at CCP doesn't make any difference to the players but it will make that devs life a little better.
Thead Enco
Thunderwaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#36 - 2014-01-03 03:54:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Thead Enco
Ali Aras wrote:
Savel wrote:
The fact the minutes for the summer just came out is unacceptable, it prevents players from having any idea what is actually going on with the CSM during said sessions. Did the guy I vote for do anything? I understand and respect that an NDA is needed to preserve many aspects of the game, but having a review process which takes months upon months prevents the player base form being able to gain nearly as much use from them. If you talk about something in the meeting and then I see a dev blog about it before I see minutes on the meeting that is an issue.

So, we're not going to be able to get you *instant* feedback. Like, the best case for minutes release right now is "around two weeks after the summit". During the summit, there's really not any time for it.

That said, yeah, this one was too long. That's why the thread-- we're working on how to make it faster next time, and a lot of that is going to involve in some way revising the way the minutes work while preserving their essential functions.

I've been reading this thread but not posting; will reply to others later tonight but wanted to get this one out of the way quickly.


How bout for starters bring people who actually have at least a High school level english competency and are willing to take notes during these meetings themselves, otherwise stop calling them "Minutes" because their not.
Yonis Kador
KADORCORP
#37 - 2014-01-03 14:22:03 UTC
Ali Aras wrote:

On a related note, CCP Dolan said on the hangout yesterday that he's considering in the next iteration of minutes *not* calling out specific CCPers by name, unless those CCPers are obviously a face of the company in order to minimize witch-hunting. For example, say CCP Ytterbium puts forth an unpopular proposal-- maybe good, maybe bad-- which represents the opinion of all of Game Design, agreed upon in dozens of meetings. But his name is on the minutes, and so a bunch of people on the forums start personally shitting on him in ways ranging from mean to actually scary. That's not fair, it's not helpful, and it's harmful to the CCP/playerbase relationship as well as the CCP/CSM relationship.

Meanwhile, someone like CCP Seagull would be called out by name, as she's at the level where she *is* a face for the company, and furthermore, can set policy for the game as a whole.


I just downloaded the minutes, need to read through them, will probably comment on the official devblog afterward, and after re-reading them a few more times over the next week or so, will likely have more to say. But before all that happens, and before I forget, I've got to disagree with this sentiment.

If someone threatens a CCP dev in real life, there are RL laws that deal with criminal behavior, and if someone violates the EULA or forum rules, they can be sanctioned accordingly in-game. But I am not going to support the removal of naming a quote's author in the official summit minutes.

If an idea - a general, vague idea - is being discussed, fine. Write that Team-whatever collectively had this to say about it. But if a CCP dev makes a comment and that comment is entered into the official minutes, then the commentor should be named.

What good is a quote without naming it's author? It completely diminishes or changes the context.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
-- Some random smart dude

YK
KIller Wabbit
MEME Thoughts
#38 - 2014-01-03 18:11:49 UTC
Why yes, let's make CCP just a faceless, monotone hulk. If people put forth an idea they should stand behind it. If they can't handle criticism then they have risen to a position of responsibility that they can't handle.

Pretty much continuing down the path of "CSM is shill for CCP"
Ali Aras
Nobody in Local
Deepwater Hooligans
#39 - 2014-01-03 18:23:52 UTC
The primary function of individual developers is not to be public figures, and sometimes developers (by virtue of working in a collaborative environment) may be presenting decisions and proposals that are not solely their own. Going after that individual developer may do little other than burning out that developer and harming the relationship between the playerbase and CCP.

Read this Polygon feature. I'm not talking about making a post on the forum saying "CCP Fozzie, I noticed in the CSM minutes that you were pushing _______. Have you considered that there are negative side effects, namely a, b, and c? This change would have consequence x, and I strongly urge you to reconsider, lest you find that you've killed activity y." That's legit, that's in-bounds, and that's the kind of feedback that gets a good response from CCP.

I'm sure that's the kind of stuff you'd like to be able to say, but that's not the only stuff that people *do* say or do. It'd be nice if we lived in a better world, but we don't.

http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog
Yonis Kador
KADORCORP
#40 - 2014-01-03 19:26:55 UTC
I'm sorry Ali, and I am nothing but sympathetic toward the issue of dev harassment and of course do not want to see anything like that happen to CCP employees, but I still disagree. If you guys permit this change, you should just do away with the CSM summit minutes entirely. You cannot, and should not, allow the minutes to devolve into a collection of anonymous quotes.

Anonymity changes more than removing the identity of the speaker - it changes the context of the speech.

YK