Jita Park Speakers Corner

Political expert here, and this idea is bad. Creating artificial divisions in the representation of the player base will only serve to reduce the effectiveness of the CSM both as a sounding board for CCP and as a representative of the players themselves. On top of that, the increased confusion of the representative process is likely to increase voter apathy, and reduce participation, which is counter-productive for everyone.

Furthermore, you would need to have a fool-proof system for determining what category each corporation and candidate falls into, and you have to take into account change and outliers from the standard patterns of behaviour. My corporation lived in wormholes for a year and a half, if I'd been elected the "Wormhole" representative on the CSM 2 months before we moved to nullsec, which position would I hold? Would I have to resign, or take part in a by-election to hold my seat? If a corporation or alliance lives largely in lowsec, but consistently is able and willing to project power into all reaches of nullsec, which seat do they hold? If a highsec mission-running corporation starts roaming lowsec in between missions, are they still a highsec corporation? In order to implement your system, the divisions between areas of space, and participation in those areas, would need to be far more definite and static.

Also, I would point out that having 3 representatives from NPC corporations is basically just a way to stack the CSM with either more highsec members, cyno alts, or 10-hour hero suicide destroyer pilots.

Moving on, it is a terrible idea to allocate representation without regard to population. A good real-world example of this is the American Senate, 100 members, evenly divided between 50 states. A state with one million voters holds as much influence as a state with thirty million. What your 3-3-3-3-3 system would do is over represent people from relatively sparsely inhabited sections of space (namely low security and wormhole space) and under represent more highly populated areas of space such as high security and sovereign null security space. That imbalance will further disenfranchise people from the idea of the CSM.

It is also a bad idea to force representation levels without regard to political participation. Why are there so many representatives from null security alliances? Because that is the main demographic that was motivated to participate in this past election. Each of the successful candidates managed to organize one of the top-9 political machines in the contest. They were most effective at communicating their ideas, they were most effective at convincing the eligible voters to check their name instead of somebody else's. In short, they were, in a democratic voting system, the best candidates. Regardless of your opinion of their view on highsec missions, ************, or icelandic prostitutes, those 9 people are, by the metric of votes earned, the best candidates. Nothing was stopping highsec organizations from trying to form a voting bloc for their preferred candidates, yet they largely did not. The null security candidates got their target audience on-side with their ideas, and (more importantly) participating in the process. Why should a candidate with more votes be passed up for a candidate with fewer votes (as in, an inferior candidate) simply because "there's already 3 from wormhole space" or wherever? That approach will only serve to promote voter apathy (as the 4th-place candidate might not get to sit on the theoretical 15-spot CSM, while a 16th-place candidate might).

Imposing such a flawed structure on the CSM in a misguided search for "fairness" (with "fairness," in this case, actually meaning "getting more exposure for MY ideas, regardless of their actual merit, feasibility, and usefulness in the quest to improve EVE Online: A Bad Game in general, not just nitpick 3 things which inherently benefit my playstyle.") will only serve to reduce both the effectiveness of the institution itself as well as the involvement of the player community in the development of the game. And we've all seen what happens when CCP management operates in a bubble of self-reinforcing ideas without some stern input from the players. They force the developers to toss out half-finished fluff with no real utility, and then go chasing the next shiny.

I would not call it dividing, but complementing. I don't think having a well rounded CSM would decrease the pull on CCP, but actually increase it as it would represent a broader player base. Ensuring all side of the game are represented would only increase the CSM knowledge of about the "game as a whole".


Rights of minorities? Hmm, I don't think we have the same idea about what the CSM should be.
I think it's not a good idea if one area is dominating the CSM, while another area is lacking. The function of the CSM, IMO, is to discuss topics from as much angles as possible, and not just from the viewpoint of the "majority". Null sec alliances aren't even a majority in the game, most characters live in high-sec. I can see that they should be heavily represented in this CSM however, but that does not mean it's a good idea to exclude other categories.

I also think the democratic side of the CSM should be in the assembly hall, where the players vote for the issues they would like the CSM to bring to CCP.

CSM proposals can only improve if they are discussed with experts from many areas.
The CSM should be representing all players, not just the "majority".

Something has bothered me about the CSM's composition for some time now. I always vote for one of the Roleplay candidates, because I would like someone on the council that can talk about issues from a roleplayer's perspective, but as far as I know, in at least in the last two elections, no candidates representing the roleplayers were elected, mainly due to the votes being split among them.

I think it would be nice if at least a portion of the seats would be reserved for candidates representing a certain area in the game, so there's a better chance of a balanced and well rounded CSM. Categories could be Low sec, Null sec, PVP, Industry, Roleplay and fiction, Small corps/alliances, Piracy etc.

Well, that's my 0.02 isk for now, what is yours?

The fact the CSM represents very narrow interests and a small percentage of the player base is irrefutable.

Terrible idea. This quote pertains more to geographic divisions, but is applicable here as well.