Jita Park Speakers Corner

Point One: the CSM as it is now is composed by members and heads of nullsec alliances, and there are no hisec dwellers. This is quite different from EVE demographics, were a majority of people dwell in hisec and a big minority are scattered between WH, lowsec and nullsec space.

Point Two: the current CSM received the votes of, roughly, 15% of the player base, a record compared to previous elections. Anyway this means that 85% the players didn't vote, which casts a reasonable doubt on how representative is the CSM as we really don't know what 5 of each 6 players think of it.

Point Three: despite that the CSM 6 has been very vocal and effective in the latest troubles, there is one point about the CSM as a concept: CCP has undergone the infamous "18 months" as planned and no amount of CSM chatter changed that. CCP only has used the CSM to control damage after the failed Incarna release, and that damage control has consisted in pleasing certain players with Crucible and swear to keep pleasing them in the future.

Point Four: some players, who are not represented in the CSM, and likely didn't vote, are NOT pleased with Crucible nor any of CCP's PR going on as CCP esentially has done nothing for them and does not listen to them neither. With the additional outrage of seeing a minority (nullsec dwellers) catered by both CCP and the CSM.

Point Five: it is a time that the CSM really represents every player an not just those who can rally a few friends to gang together and reach to speak for 5/6th of the game who likely don't know them, neither the candidates know or likelly care of them.


Proposal One: voting the CSM must be compulsory, at least until people gets used to do so. Every player who logs in during election period must be forced to vote, either won't be allowed to reach the character selection screen. An option to vote later may be added, but only for a limited amount of chances. That certainly should increase total vote and the representivity of the CSM.

Proposal Two: the election system will be a preferential one based on the Single Transferable Vote mechanics. Details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

That would prevent candidates with a lot of friends but poor reputation to be elected, as would gather low ranks, whereas moderate candidates would score higher ranks.

Proposal Three: the list of candidates will be randomized for each display, so random voting to "skip the page" will tend to cancel itself as every candidate wil have the same chances to get the same random scores. Anyway, by forcing the people to SEE the list of candidates, some candidates may collect high/low rankings which otherwise wouldn't: Compulsory vote always tends to increase effective vote.

Conclusion: if CCP wants to listen more to the CSM, then the next CSM should represent every player, and not just those who know each other and are corp buddies and have a shared background within the nullsec minority.

I am a highsec carebear too and quite enjoy Eve as such.

When I look at the CSM priorities and people it consists of its probably true a vital and big part is absolutely not represented by the CSM. Though I like the new Crucible very much I would also wish for a more PvE focused and laid back expansion in the future that will be more interesting for the non-PvP players out there.

A change in voting mechanics will surely help to give us highsec people a louder voice. So please make it happen.

Make an ingame Voting (maybe at startup like issued) and make it simple and understandable what each players goals are and most importantly what sort of player he considers himself (business tycoon, alliance leader, mission runner, wormhole dweller etc)

So… Point 3: the CSM has no effect, so therefore, Point 5: more people need to have no effect.
It doesn't particularly matter who's elected representative if they have no effect, now does it?

Anyway, how about: if people want to be represented, they find someone who represents them and votes them in? If such a large portion of the playerbase is without representation, then they should have no problems actually getting someone in if they cared about it.

Of course,, the actual problem has nothing to do with the voting or the representation — it's that people don't care… changing the voting system will not make them care more, and making it compulsory will only annoy them.

I wrote a reply but then realized you can't argue the stupid out of a stupid person. Just get out.

CSM not relevant. What changed CCP's mind was unsub's.

But if they can't be gotten rid of - Proposal 2

No. They won't care about the game just because they're being bugged about something they don't care about — they'll just care about getting that bug removed.

It will not improve the CSM in any way since it will have no impact on the CSM beyond making voting non-mandatory again.

Well, then we will know something we don't know now. Information is better than guesses.

We already know that slapping people in the face with a halibut is not going to make them want to join our pet protests. So no, we won't know anything new.

Again, the better idea is to simply try to gather up the votes of those who care and use those to put a new representative on the CSM. If that turns out to be impossible, then maybe the supposed problem is… shall we say, overstated.

If only the CSM were closed for not being constructive.

…one where people in general don't particularly care about the outcome of the election because it either makes no difference or because they're happy with the situation and feel no need to get involved with changing anything.

In case a), changing the system does nothing because the representation is pointless; in case b), changing the system is not needed because if there's enough concern about the direction, people will ensure their representation.

The interesting things about bad democracies is that they tend to have ridiculously high participation numbers…