Jita Park Speakers Corner

I may be crass with this comment but why should CCP getting value for money on a handful of flight tickets/accommodations be a concern? I thought the main point of the CSM is to give CCP reasonable insight into how planned changes to the game will affect game play mechanics and user enjoyment.



In this case my view is simply that the cure is worse than the disease. Let the players decide who to send and if they're seen to be doing a bad job then perhaps the players will eject them. If they can continue to garner support then who are you to say that those players who lent them support are wrong. No entity or alliance can force its members to vote for a candidate - usually we vote for candidates because we know and trust them since we know who they are and chat with them on a regular basis, the same can not be said for widely fragmented users. Without a breaking change to the election mechanics there is no way for those who play EVE as a mostly single player game to focus their support behind one or two candidates to leverage their votes and gain representation.

That being said any assumption that null sec entrants to the CSM are hostile or indifferent to high sec is foolish. We do pay attention to high sec mechanics and appreciate that EVE isn't only for nullsec players.

Here's the problem, or what is perceived to be the problem. Several CSM members, Trebor notable amongst them, have said things in the past and in these minutes that make it seem as though they are out to get big voting blocs, and the fact that Veritas seems to agree that organized voting power "is a problem" doesn't help. It leads many to conclude that a) the current CSM (or parts of it) are trying to protect their own power and b) that CCP seems to like what many players have regarded as a "weak" or "complicit" CSM, and so is on board with anything to keep out what those same players regard as "strong" candidates.

I'll grant it's a bit tinfoily, but that's Eve for you... though Trebor's advocating for a bizarre modification of the STV voting system instead of merely a regular STV voting system didn't exactly help matters. STV is already supposed to "minimize wasted votes", taking it a step further was, needless to say, odd.

Characterizing it as "The CSM" is pretty wrong, given the dissent over the topic. That said, I feel that Veritas' and even Trebor's concern stem less from wanting a compliant PR tool or wanting to maintain their power than I do a concern for the CSM's effectiveness. Or at least, that's more believable than the idea that they're in cahoots and are keeping up a facade even in a semi-private setting. While quite a lot of us admittedly see it as a tool to advance the "nullsec agenda", nullsec is only part of the game and would be hard pressed to stand alone. The overall health of the game is paramount, which in turn produces a requirement or desire that the CSM be broadly representative of the game as a whole. We, or at least I, recognize and acknowledge that... although I personally think that the flipside is that assuming a nullsec candidate won't care about highsec is foolish. Hell, I actually spend more time in highsec than I do in nullsec these days.

I maintain that the best way to ensure a broader representation is to encourage a higher voter participation, but acknowledge that there is a decidedly large part of the playerbase that neither knows nor cares that the CSM exists or what they do, and won't no matter what. Thus, some sort of voting reform is almost inevitable, whether we like it or not.

So, to CCP and the CSM and such - want to lay the tinfoil to rest? Address the concerns, specifically that this is all an attempt to shut nullsec blocs (or other organized blocs) out entirely. If a voting system winds up only allowing perhaps one candidate from an organized group in, fine - we already concluded more than one voice isn't really useful anyway, that's why Mittani was our only candidate to CSM7. But if a system appears overtly designed to suppress organized voting entirely - that's when you're going to have problems on your hands, and not just from us. Mark my words.



Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to actually reading the minutes instead of addressing this shitstorm.

I'm not sure how many other ways there are to say "it's not." that haven't already been used to, evidently, insufficient effect.

As you can clearly see from the minutes there is no intent, either explicit or implicit, from anyone on the CSM (including Trebor) or CCP to shut out any group, 0.0 or otherwise, Goon or otherwise, from the process.

The concern's expressed are rather that the information advantages RIGHTFULLY enjoyed by organized voting blocs to elect multiple candidates is never the less too OP and need a slight nerf/balance to ensure the wide representation of perspectives and playstyles on future CSMs that CSM7 has been lucky enough to have.

Aka how can we modernize the voting system so that CSM7 isnt a unicorn.

Part of that discussion is how can CCP minimize the spoiler effect/"wasted" votes OR improve the information available to candidates/campaigns generally without making it even easier for large blocs to stuff. Which would defeat the purpose of diversity.

So if you've already decided having more than one voice isn't useful anyway, I dont see the sense in wasting energy on it. I'd put your persuasive efforts behind addressing issues that actually have and might still affect your organization, edge cases like TheMittani so your one-candidates-worth of votes don't get wasted by an ill timed ban or car crash.

I would agree it might be an issue if we had seen it be an issue in the past. We have went out of our way to not stack the vote in previous CSMs, and to your point, to our detriment. If this was a problem that had actually occurred, that is one thing. But to go trying to solve a problem, when we have the most diverse CSM ever?

That is where the skepticism lies, looking for a solution to a problem that does not currently exist.

To go beyond the previous posts, I was just wondering what has come of the email/skype conversations you've had since the summit? Is there an approach that is gaining traction? With the fact the web resources can be used to change the process, are we more likely to be allowed to vote for a council, and not just one individual? If the idea is to have a diverse council, letting us vote for candidates we feel are strong in those differing areas seems like the most common sense way.

Because CSM6 was one of the LEAST diverse and it caused tangible, real problems in terms of little things slipping through the cracks that didn't directly concern sov 0.0 (not objecting to GM's stopping enforcement of war dec exploits for instance).

No CSM prior to CSM7 even approached the level of diversity we currently have and various factors indicate those elements will not combine again for CSM8. War not being a hot button issue, FW being "finished", lack of an obvious WH candidate, Goonswarm and TEST announcing plans to run 2-3 candidates instead of one each like last time, some big names who got/could get by without blocs not running again and so on.

So it IS broke, let's fix it. There's no reason for us to be stuck with this system for the next 3 or 4 years so while Xhagen is updating the white paper (finally) let's make sensible updates to this part of it too.

PS: leave something for the podcast!

CCP Xhagen has not made any final decisions AFAIK, nor has there been a lot of discussion about it -- believe it or not, we've got much higher priority items on our plates. I am sure that he will be taking note of the arguments made in this thread, and we will abide by the decisions he makes -- because while he is no longer Iceland's largest land-mammal, he is still the man.

....confirming that paranoid players have spent far more hours and typed-out words discussing this issue than the CSM, which pretty much walked away from it until CCP Xhagen placed it on the summit schedule and forced the discussion again.

I haven't replied as I do not feel that is a solvable issue. What system is going to allow for a massively diluted vote to matter? Even the proposed revamp system would not elect one. My understanding was the issue for CSM7 was that they felt all players should get a voice. Voter participation is the answer to that. However, no system in either the real world, or virtual one is going to solve the issue of a bloc fracturing so badly they dilute their vote under any reasonable threshold (14 seats). So I do not know how you would expect to solve a math problem like that.

No it doesn't. Any system that allows you do to that, allows us to do the same. With 100k+ null players.

Edit with some real data. (omg leaks)

We have near perfect exit polling. Our results are always within 5% or so of reality. So we have the ability to almost perfectly calculate the required vote totals needed for each winner, as well as the ability to spread them perfectly to ensure we are just above any non-null voting bloc. This is through a combination of IT infrastructure as well as organization. No non-screwoverplayesr-voting system you can invent is going to solve that math problem for small minorities.