Jita Park Speakers Corner

I read the same text as you, and didn't saw anything about CSMs wanting to avoid nullsec bloc to be elected, they are only saying there shouldn't be more than one elected by power bloc, that it would better this way, as people within different power blocs will have different views, and so will add more to the conversation that friends from the same alliance. Obviously there may have exceptions where an alliance have two guys with pretty different gameplay that would both contribute to the debate.

from CSM White Paper - The Möbius Strip

And thus continues another episode in the circular jerking that is the white paper discussion.

Rather than discuss this amongst themselves over the last six months, the CSM decided to leave it be and waste pretty much an entire hour rehashing it all in Iceland again. Apparently, wasting CCP Xhagen's time is fine and dandy. It's not like they didn't have all summer and most of the fall to come to a consensus with each other. No. Better to just argue it out from scratch again.

What did we learn? We learned that Russians seem to understand democracy better than Americans. Irony, here, perhaps.

We learn that the CSM is really adamant that they'd be totally a-okay with CCP Xhagen determining who gets to go to Iceland. No, really, Xhagen, we would be happy if you did it. Truly. We wouldn't create a single fuss. Honest.

(The CSM suggests that of the seven people who get tickets to Iceland, CCP picks five of those people, and the CSM picks the remaining two.)

Xhagen would be a fool to start picking and choosing. Because if he picks "wrong", the CSM would be all up in his craw in record time.

Easy enough given past CSMs, where less than the allotted plane tickets actually spend any effort doing whatever it is CSM members are supposed to do. Picking five people, out of the six actually doing work, would be easy. What happens if we get a CSM where ten of the fourteen members are actually contributing? What happens then when Xhagen picks his five? Does anybody believe that the CSM would not turn on CCP at that point, that bad blood would not erupt, accusations and recriminations would not abound?

Hans was really quick to get butthurt during the session itself, when Xhagen put forth an example:

You don't get a better illustration, of what exactly would happen the moment Xhagen chooses the "wrong" person, than Hans' quick and defensive response to the example given.

Sure, it sucks that some CSM members don't contribute, and possibly get a free trip for doing next to nothing, but by the same token, allowing CSM members to vote people off the island is immediately open to abuse. The CSM could start removing any voice they don't agree with. What safeguards are implemented? How is contribution codified?

CCP is not going to put themselves in a position where they can be accused of favouritism. Or politicking in their own favour. They already went through that mess with the T20 scandal, and I doubt they want to revisit that nightmare. These sorts of things can quickly spiral out of control.

I'd say the White Paper is fine as is. It's really up to the players to vote wisely. Again, this comes down to voter education. The more people that vote informed, the less likely that joke candidates like Darius III get in the door.

And the SPOILER EFFECT is a symptom of unorganized voting groups. So, either you have a problem with unorganized voting groups, or you do not.

I specifically requested that we didn't have a session on this at the summit, it felt like a waste of time. What needed to happen was work actually beginning on the White Paper. We got that commitment out of the session, thankfully, and we'll be holding CCP Xhagen to that commitment. But beyond that, I would have much preferred we handle that through Skype or the forums and discuss something else instead, cause we covered all that material in Spring and nothing dramatic changed except for players (rightfully) making it clear that we should have nothing to do with any changes in electoral mechanics - and Xhagen committing to take that subject on himself instead.

If people don't vote their bloc in they won't have people on the CSM. Substitutions to the rules won't fix that basic problem.

Yes making voting easier for the populous is GREAT!!!
Educating the populous on why to vote is GREAT!!!

This will lead to more votes occurring, so limiting the ability for people to scam their way on to the CSM.

But the CSM is our (the players) representative body and the number of votes a candidate gets should dictate whether they go to Iceland to represent the community. It is not up to individual player or CCP Xhagen (All praise the great one) to decide who goes to Iceland, how is it anyone's right to decide who is productive? or if the voters actually want a non-productive person to go to Iceland as a protest?

For me personally I would like to see CCP stay as far away from the CSM process as possible, for example no ISD interference in CSM forums and no ex-CCP employees on the CSM but as to ex-employees that too is for the voters to decide, not me or anyone else.

for example


Now personally I find that comment completely blasphemous, I agree that the CSM working with CCP can and should be a good thing, most of the time but there should be times when the CSM just tells them "Bad Idea", so it should not be CCP stating what it wants from the group but what the players want from the group.

As to CCPs investment, it is cheaper for CCP to interact with the CSM than it is to have them constantly looking at the forums, pod casts, blogs and everything else that makes up the EvE Universe, while I love the interaction on the forums, I would like to see the CSM represent the majority of EvE so that when the CSM talks it speaks with the majority of the player bases voice.

As to kicking people off the island, I agree with what some of the CSM has said. It should not happen short of NDA breach. Yes the CSM should have the power to remove someone from chairman or secretary position but not remove them from the CSM. That is what elections are for. It is the peoples choice not the politicians.

Yes my views are one sided in this. the CSM is the player representative body, yes they are there to help CCP guide the game towards a future the players desire but it is also there to speak for the players.

On a quick note as to multiple candidates for the same thing, for example 6 WH candidates. Well that is something the candidates need to sort out for them selves. Unfortunately that should not be hard coded into a system as what happens if you have 6 mining candidates but from different security types and 6 WH candidates with overlaps to the other and 6 PvE candidates with overlaps to the other 2 subsets?

The CSM is the player representatives, so leave it to the players. Yes educate the populous and make it easier to vote.

So what I am saying is like most of EvE, give us the tools and let us run with them.

I re-read it several times hoping that I missed something, and outside of the "ISD stay out" part (and that's just a really minor disagreement), he's completely right. Kind of at a loss for words here.

Let me toss in a suggestion for a modified voting system that would help spread votes a little more than the current one:

Voting mechanism:

- voting is "optional preferential". Each voter marks their favourite candidate as #1. They can then mark another as #2, another as #3, as far as they want to go, until they get bored or run out of candidates.


Resolution mechanism:

Basic idea: to elect N candidates, eliminate the least popular candidates until only N remain. Votes for eliminated candidates are redistributed by preference.

Mechanism:

- sort all "ballots" by their #1 vote.

- eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes. The #2 preference on each ballot becomes the "active vote" for that ballot. Redistribute accordingly.

- eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes, redistributing as above. If the #1 and #2 votes on a ballot are for eliminated candidates, proceed to #3. If a ballot runs out of preferences, discard it.

- continue until only N candidates remain. These candidates are declared elected.


Quirk: I'd recommend ranking candidates by their #1 votes, not preferenced votes. This creates an incentive to get as many #1 votes as possible.

Comment: Unlike parliamentary systems that use this mechanism for multi-seat elections, I recommend not redistributing over-votes. By doing so, a number of weaker candidates can be coalesced (by the voters) into a single stronger candidate, but a single very strong candidate cannot drag allies up with them.

also I note issler was so useless that the csm actually forgot she existed when discussing useless candidates

that's some zen **** there man

This appears to be a topic mostly driven by Xhagen rather than the CSM, and as much as anything it looks to be an issue with CCP wanting to have their cake and eat it too. On the one hand, all the fun and drama and "oh you wacky CCP guys" of players running for elections in the same de-restricted, player-driven method as in-game political and diplomatic affairs. On the other, they don't want the hassle of dealing with the inevitable consequence of that - that maybe the resulting CSM composition will not fit in with CCP's conception of an 'ideal' line-up.

I remain unconvinced that this is a circle which can be squared.