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Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#141 - 2014-01-17 15:08:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Pinky Hops
Ali Aras wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:

How did you guys stand on the ESS? Oh that's right -- complete silence on the matter.

http://csm8.org/blog/
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4114311#post4114311

Yes, complete silence Roll


So, three of you have posted something about it. One of you likes it, one of you doesn't like it, and one of them just posted a wall of useless changes to it.

Again -- useless.

Ari Aras wrote:
]I actually like the thing, in concept and somewhat in design.


http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com/post/73523609605/csm-at-work-the-ess

Yeah, great blog....Not even once mentioning the convoluted, overcomplicated design, instead just focusing on a few numbers or details of the thing. Roll

Useless.
Mike Azariah
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#142 - 2014-01-17 18:10:54 UTC
Pinky . . . . I am not sure what you want but I doubt you are going to get it from us or if you do, you won't admit it.

You complain that we are silent and it is pointed out that we are not,

So you complain that we cannot agree and have differing viewpoints.

Which is what you should want if there are expectations of us representing the game.

Play a little experiment with me. If the CSM was everything that you think it should be or could be how would THAT CSM handle the ESS?

Or does it come down to your perfect CSM does not exist because you don't think the CSM should exist in the first place?

m

Mike Azariah  ┬──┬ ¯|(ツ)

Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#143 - 2014-01-17 20:31:13 UTC
Mike Azariah wrote:
Or does it come down to your perfect CSM does not exist because you don't think the CSM should exist in the first place?


More this.

I think it's basically been shown to be a Bad Idea and a huge expenditure of resources. I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial - and I highly doubt you have any real impact or influence on CCP's final decisions on anything. Probably any perceived influence is just CCP trying to make you feel better.

It seems to be more like some sort of publicity stunt to make the player base feel like they "have a say."

And then even worse, it just ends up being talking heads from big alliances or other forms of meta groups/communities. And in all but the most extreme cases, they will argue for their own personal gain, or for the personal loss of people who don't play like they do.

So it's at the very least, several layers of compounded badness.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#144 - 2014-01-17 20:36:43 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?


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

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016

Omega Tron
Edge Dancers
Pan-Intergalatic Business Community
#145 - 2014-01-18 04:49:38 UTC
I don't know if you'll read this far into this, but if you do here is my answer to you about the posed question you have of the "Why the CSM"?

In my view the CSM is another set of eyes that's looking at the forums, meeting in person at various player gathering and then taking their gathered finding and opinions back to the CCP EVE Online Developers. Does the CSM get things right every time -- Hell no! But they do have the singular ability to carry some of the larger player base views back to CCP. So until someone or some group can come up with a better way of expressing my views to CCP than the CSM, I for one am going to continue to use them and vote when the time comes. My 2 ISK's.

CCP's sand box is EVE Online.  The sand is owned by CCP.  We pay them a monthly fee to throw the sand at each other.  That is all that is here, so move along. Nothing more to be seen.

Benny Ohu
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#146 - 2014-01-18 19:30:21 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
I only pointed out that it's primarily a biased committees with people who's main agenda is to push for things that benefit them/their corp/ their alliance/ their coalition/ whatever.

The fear is, that it has become an extension of the EVE metagame,

the more obvious ploys

And in all but the most extreme cases, they will argue for their own personal gain, or for the personal loss of people who don't play like they do

still waiting on anything but unfounded accusations

posting the same conclusion over and over is not premise, example or proof
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#147 - 2014-01-18 21:36:08 UTC
Malcanis wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?




I think it would be your job to do that, not mine. I already said I can't find any examples of the CSM's doing anything like that.

Or are you confused about the two words singular and benefit?

Try a dictionary.
Captain Ravanor Eistiras
Doomheim
#148 - 2014-01-20 04:52:31 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?




I think it would be your job to do that, not mine. I already said I can't find any examples of the CSM's doing anything like that.

Or are you confused about the two words singular and benefit?

Try a dictionary.


so because you have nothing to support your anger others whom you accuse of being useless have to show wtf your talking about, let me guess, the sky on your world is green isnt it.
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#149 - 2014-01-20 13:20:13 UTC
Captain Ravanor Eistiras wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?




I think it would be your job to do that, not mine. I already said I can't find any examples of the CSM's doing anything like that.

Or are you confused about the two words singular and benefit?

Try a dictionary.


so because you have nothing to support your anger others whom you accuse of being useless have to show wtf your talking about, let me guess, the sky on your world is green isnt it.


So....Wait.

I don't think the CSM's do anything useful. So therefore it's my job to find an example of them doing something...useful?

Yeah, that makes sense. Roll
Darek Castigatus
Immortalis Inc.
Shadow Cartel
#150 - 2014-01-20 17:44:12 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
Captain Ravanor Eistiras wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?




I think it would be your job to do that, not mine. I already said I can't find any examples of the CSM's doing anything like that.

Or are you confused about the two words singular and benefit?

Try a dictionary.


so because you have nothing to support your anger others whom you accuse of being useless have to show wtf your talking about, let me guess, the sky on your world is green isnt it.


So....Wait.

I don't think the CSM's do anything useful. So therefore it's my job to find an example of them doing something...useful?

Yeah, that makes sense. Roll



If you're expecting people to attach any kind of weight to your statement beyond 'oh look its the insane dribble from yet another frothing neckbeard' then yes actually it is your responsibility to find evidence to back up your claim.

Pirates - The Invisible Fist of Darwin

you're welcome

Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#151 - 2014-01-20 18:49:59 UTC
Darek Castigatus wrote:
If you're expecting people to attach any kind of weight to your statement beyond 'oh look its the insane dribble from yet another frothing neckbeard' then yes actually it is your responsibility to find evidence to back up your claim.


How the hell do you prove a committee is useless without just pointing out a lack of them doing anything useful?

If the CSM system is working and oh-so-useful, it would be trivial to point out dozens of examples of their positive effects. Where are they?
CCP Dolan
C C P
C C P Alliance
#152 - 2014-01-20 20:26:32 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Dolan
Pinky Hops wrote:
Darek Castigatus wrote:
If you're expecting people to attach any kind of weight to your statement beyond 'oh look its the insane dribble from yet another frothing neckbeard' then yes actually it is your responsibility to find evidence to back up your claim.


How the hell do you prove a committee is useless without just pointing out a lack of them doing anything useful?

If the CSM system is working and oh-so-useful, it would be trivial to point out dozens of examples of their positive effects. Where are they?


The CSM was involved in every feature released in Rubicon. They helped in selecting which mobile structures were selected for rubicon, were involved in refining many of the balance changes, they assisted in clarifying issues like the ToS and 3rd party supports problems into salient points from the frankly overwhelmingly jumbled feedback of many threads and thousands of posts, and were even the entire reason that some features were added to the game.

Ultimately, the existence of the CSM makes the game better. They don't mean that we take the communities opinion into account any less, if the CSM existed our developers would read the forums and outside blogs just as much as they do now. Making the assumption that the existence of the CSM somehow decreases the strength of each of the 500,000+ players opinions, is a mistake. Additionally, just because a member of the CSM disagrees with something that you said and CCP makes a change doesn't mean we followed the opinion of a CSM member over yours, we took all of the feedback and made the call we thought was best.

CCP Dolan | Community Representative

Twitter: @CCPDolan

Gooby pls

Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#153 - 2014-01-20 20:54:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Pinky Hops
CCP Dolan wrote:
The CSM was involved in every feature released in Rubicon.


If by "involved" you mean being given a presentation, sure. The minutes didn't show much of anything in terms of CSM's offering meaningful input or influencing decisions. A few questions here and there. The occasional joke.

I have no way to verify any of your claims. Basically....{citation needed}



I see nowhere in this link that it suggests that these things could ONLY have happened with CSM's. It just looks like CSM's took good ideas from the thread, and presented them. If anything, the people who deserve the credit are the people who came up with the original concepts/ideas - not CSM.

CCP Dolan wrote:
Ultimately, the existence of the CSM makes the game better.


Debatable. I see it as a large waste of money with little to show for itself.

CCP Dolan wrote:
Additionally, just because a member of the CSM disagrees with something that you said and CCP makes a change doesn't mean we followed the opinion of a CSM member over yours, we took all of the feedback and made the call we thought was best.


I doubt either the CSM or the general public has much of an impact on the final decisions of CCP....probably unsubs is the main thing they notice.
Kesthely
State War Academy
Caldari State
#154 - 2014-01-20 21:09:19 UTC
The CSM works, and at the same time doesn't work:

Heres my point of view:

The CSM as an entity is a great institution, and a rather unique way for a games designer to actually incorporate player ideas and feedback into their development. In theory they represent all the players, and will give balanced feedback based on what the players want.

And here comes the problem. The election of the CSM is based on "an american system" wich means that whoever gets most publicity and / or has the most backers will get elected. With the few Mega-alliances there are in eve the publicity is rather onsided around the CSM elections, the big alliances get more attention of what they say and at the same time get a bigger audiance. Small entities, get virtually no publicity.

This means that even for the player who DOES want to vote based on idealogy, or planned projects has a hard time of getting the information of all the elects, and this information is often still diluded with propaganistic disinformation of the bigger entities.

This combined that the Bigger entities have a much larger playerbase behind them, wich automaticly results in a lot of extra votes the representation of the CSM shifts towards an electorial wich main intrest is accentuated to the large entities.

Ship and weapon system rebalancing, priority of new features, basicly everything the CSM is consulted on, shifts towards a more beneficial "big entity" framework.

So to sum things up. All inherent flaws of the CSM is not due to the institution of the CSM, but either a direct cause of the electoral system, or due to personality traits of individual CSM members.

What could be a better Way to represent the player community better?

What i propose is a drastic shift in the voteing procedure of the CSM.
Patriotic as i am, i believe that our Dutch system, is a lot more representative for this kind of electorial.

Instead of individual members running for CSM spots, the shift should go to a more uniform state. Entities that have common ideas in place. These entities can be a generic as "Empire" "Lowsec" "Nullsec" "Wormhole Space". Each Candidate for the CSM puts in its main concerns, and is then placed in one of the categories.

Next all votes are counted and Percentage wise allocated to each entity. Eg, if people in the Empire entity gets 20% of all the votes, 2 out of 10 CSM members should come out of that pool. Then the 2 persons that got the most votes in the empire section get to be in it.

So what does this mean for us the voter. This means that you as a voter actually get more to say, even if your prefered candidate doesn't get chosen. Because your prefered candidate is in a certain ideology group, the member that does get chosen out of that group is bound to have more in common then one in a diameticly opposed group.

As a result you will have less "lost" votes, players will be able to vote more clearly to wich area they think the attention needs to go, and the competition, and representation within a group becomes more uniform. (EG if 30% of the votes go to "Nullsec" the endresult would be more then likely that one of each large entity only gets in)

CCP Dolan
C C P
C C P Alliance
#155 - 2014-01-20 21:34:55 UTC
I don't really like to get involved in point for point discussions, as usually one person is completely set in their beliefs and no amount of debate will change their mind, but I like to be an optimist so here we go :)

Pinky Hops wrote:
If by "involved" you mean being given a presentation, sure. The minutes didn't show much of anything in terms of CSM's offering meaningful input or influencing decisions. A few questions here and there. The occasional joke.

I have no way to verify any of your claims. Basically....{citation needed}


The citation is me, I was in all of those summit meetings, and in fact all of the meetings the CSM attends. Additionally, all of those times the minutes said "we'll continue this discussion in a forum thread", I see those too. I talk to our development teams every day. Here is the citation:

"The CSM was involved in every feature released in Rubicon." -CCP Dolan, 2014

Pinky Hops wrote:
I see nowhere in this link that it suggests that these things could ONLY have happened with CSM's. It just looks like CSM's took good ideas from the thread, and presented them. If anything, the people who deserve the credit are the people who came up with the original concepts/ideas - not CSM.


Once again, I was there. The CSM took these projects from "not on the roadmap" to "on the roadmap". I'm not saying that it's the only way it could have happened, they probably would have been done eventually in some future expansion, but the CSM advocated for a thing that people wanted and got it put on the roadmap, regardless of whose idea they were advocating.

Pinky Hops wrote:
Debatable. I see it as a large waste of money with little to show for itself.


This is actually one of the few areas where community opinion doesn't actually matter. It's CCP's call, and a pretty hard fact that the CSM saves us money. I know how much money I spend on the CSM every year and I know how much value they bring to the table. Ultimately, even if the community stopped running as candidates, and everyone stopped voting, I'd figure out some way to fill what is essentially the same value niche, but there is no guarantee it would work as well and all of the alternatives we've ever looked at are more expensive.

Pinky Hops wrote:
I doubt either the CSM or the general public has much of an impact on the final decisions of CCP....probably unsubs is the main thing they notice.


Once again, I am literally a member of CCP. I work with our development teams every Monday - Friday. I am straight up telling you what has an impact on our decisions.

I don't mean to sound rude or offensive here, as I believe you have legitimate concerns. I could understand many of your objections if I was another player, but I am not. I'm a dev and can speak with more authority on the matter than virtually anyone else alive.

CCP Dolan | Community Representative

Twitter: @CCPDolan

Gooby pls

Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#156 - 2014-01-20 22:34:23 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Pinky Hops wrote:
I can't identify any specific area where the CSM existing was singularly beneficial


Can you give an example of what you would consider "singularly beneficial"?




I think it would be your job to do that, not mine. I already said I can't find any examples of the CSM's doing anything like that.

Or are you confused about the two words singular and benefit?

Try a dictionary.

he's assuming, correctly, that's a term of art you've created that you're going to redefine so it doesn't apply to anything that you're presented with, so he's asking you to commit to a definition and then will skewer you with it because your point is bad and you can't support it without slippery definitions

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.

Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#157 - 2014-01-20 23:15:00 UTC
CCP Dolan wrote:
The citation is me, I was in all of those summit meetings, and in fact all of the meetings the CSM attends. Additionally, all of those times the minutes said "we'll continue this discussion in a forum thread", I see those too. I talk to our development teams every day.


I can't really trust this or take this seriously. If the impact was as big as you say, it would be easily recognizable outside of just taking a community rep's word for it.

CCP Dolan wrote:
Once again, I was there. The CSM took these projects from "not on the roadmap" to "on the roadmap". I'm not saying that it's the only way it could have happened, they probably would have been done eventually in some future expansion, but the CSM advocated for a thing that people wanted and got it put on the roadmap, regardless of whose idea they were advocating.


It's a cute example, but I don't see this is as anything that couldn't have been accomplished quicker and more easily by just cataloging the ideas and doing a steady regimen of community polling. Very rapidly the most important and good suggestions would rise to the top.

In fact, it would probably be far more efficient than having a random gaggle of biased talking heads from the in-game "political arena" - assuming your goal is to extract the best ideas from a large set of random ideas.

Which leads us to:

CCP Dolan wrote:
This is actually one of the few areas where community opinion doesn't actually matter. It's CCP's call, and a pretty hard fact that the CSM saves us money. I know how much money I spend on the CSM every year and I know how much value they bring to the table. Ultimately, even if the community stopped running as candidates, and everyone stopped voting, I'd figure out some way to fill what is essentially the same value niche, but there is no guarantee it would work as well and all of the alternatives we've ever looked at are more expensive.


This sounds pretty defensive. There are a lot of different ways to gather information on what kinds of things would be beneficial to the game whilst also being enjoyable and engaging to the players. You guys barely even poll -- which is quite a leap to make considering there's this expensive and complicated "CSM" system.

Am I saying polling beats elected representation in all forms? No - of course not...But when you suggest that "everything is more expensive" and you barely even use some of the cheapest and most cost effective tools in industry....Well, it becomes hard to take your defensiveness seriously.

Weaselior wrote:
he's assuming, correctly, that's a term of art you've created that you're going to redefine so it doesn't apply to anything that you're presented with, so he's asking you to commit to a definition and then will skewer you with it because your point is bad and you can't support it without slippery definitions


There's nothing slippery about it. Beneficial. What you're doing is something even worse than a slippery slope. You're being deliberately obtuse and arguing about definitions.

At least Dolan bothered to look a few examples up....
Kesthely
State War Academy
Caldari State
#158 - 2014-01-20 23:36:01 UTC
Pinky Hops wrote:

This sounds pretty defensive. There are a lot of different ways to gather information on what kinds of things would be beneficial to the game whilst also being enjoyable and engaging to the players. You guys barely even poll -- which is quite a leap to make considering there's this expensive and complicated "CSM" system.

Am I saying polling beats elected representation in all forms? No - of course not...But when you suggest that "everything is more expensive" and you barely even use some of the cheapest and most cost effective tools in industry....Well, it becomes hard to take your defensiveness seriously.


I would like to point out that even IF the CSM was only a group of players skimming the forums for ideas, that that is still cheaper then setting up polls. For to do that, you need a few persons to be able to explain exactly what you want to ask, and be able to put that forward. Then dureing and after the poll you need to collect the data, (wich isn't just X persons voted A, Y persons voted B, but also what it means. And furthermore you would be restricted and limited to the questions you would bring forward, ignoreing anything of the relevalt data that might incure into dissision makeing, wich you would get from the same, or less amount of people searching trough those forums.

Plus in raw manpower you probably need more for the polls, and you lose more developers time (They need to brainstorm the topics, what they want to know, adress those to the pollmakers, then after data, they need to get back to the developers to talk things over, while going to the CSM can be as simpel as: "We have Missiles on the agenda for next year, whats your / the communities thought about them")

Are polls the easiest system? NO, They generally need a lot more work.
Are polls more reliable? NO, They are limited only to the question asked, and the interpertation of the one takeing the poll.
Are polls cheap and cost effective? NO, you need an equal amount of manpower to setup and collect the data, plus you lose more developers time


But seeing so far how you've treated eleborated discussion points, this no doubt is to defensive and thus not to be taken serious.

(Ow Csm you can actually snip that last remark as offensive if you so choose)
Pinky Hops
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#159 - 2014-01-20 23:43:34 UTC
Kesthely wrote:
For to do that, you need a few persons to be able to explain exactly what you want to ask, and be able to put that forward. Then dureing and after the poll you need to collect the data, (wich isn't just X persons voted A, Y persons voted B, but also what it means. And furthermore you would be restricted and limited to the questions you would bring forward, ignoreing anything of the relevalt data that might incure into dissision makeing, wich you would get from the same, or less amount of people searching trough those forums.


But this is already all being done anyway, in a much larger form. Instead of just simple polls being created -- entire presentations filled with metrics, data, summaries, etc...Complete with probably a bullet list of points that they would want to ask the CSM's to weigh in on (sound familiar to a poll yet?)

Kesthely wrote:
Plus in raw manpower you probably need more for the polls, and you lose more developers time (They need to brainstorm the topics, what they want to know, adress those to the pollmakers, then after data, they need to get back to the developers to talk things over, while going to the CSM can be as simpel as: "We have Missiles on the agenda for next year, whats your / the communities thought about them")


Again, this is already being done, just in a far more labor intensive way, when interacting with the CSM's.

As to the rest: I already specifically stated that they have a few limitations compared to having people in the room...But they are definitely a hell of a lot cheaper than the CSM system, which is why I laughed at his "cost" comment.
Kesthely
State War Academy
Caldari State
#160 - 2014-01-21 00:18:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Kesthely
I am an ERP-Programmer (Enterprise Resource Programmer) in real life. That means i have to talk to the people in charge and ask them what they want to have steamlined in their company from intial order to product aftercare, and everything that has to do with it.

In that respect (EvE Online is still a product of a company) i have a good inside knowledge of how an advisory organ (wich ERP programmers are an integral part off) benefits a company, or even specific products of a company. CSM is just like that. It isn't a customer care devision, nor a development devision, its an advisory organ wich needs to stay on the outside and have a unique view to the company and or its product in order to work.

You've had replies from both CSM and CCP, a feat of itself thats not accesible for many other users. The've in detail tried to explain how and why things work for them. I charge about 400-500 dollars per hour for my input, 40 hours a week, 47 weeks a year, for an average of 2 years per company. Most companies with 30-50 employees, and only 100 to 200 regular customers, break even or have profit for the work i've done within a year.

CCP is a much larger company, a global company with hundreds of thousands of regular customers. For them The CSM works. They give the information THEY want, in a format THEY are content with, in a timeframe and cost they are happy with. How do i know that? Not because One employee says so, not because one CSM members says so, but because CCP is still a company. If it would not work for them, the CSM would not exist. If there was a cheaper alternative, they would choose so. Thats what companies do. They look at the cost effectiveness, and scratch additional expenses.

They don't NEED YOUR input, they don't NEED any players input. Because at the end of the day its their product, that your simply buying. They have the CSM, a large contributary force in the way of CCP members CSM members and GM's that in and outside of the game try to awnser your questions, keep you informed of whats happening, and ask for your input because THEY want to.

So show just a -LITTLE- respect, and instead of ONLY looking at it your way, try to see it from their shoes.

CCP isn't perfect, CSM isn't perfect, but guess what, thats because there People! What i'm thankfull off, and i hope that many of the other players are as well, in the effort to have this continued dialog.