If this veers too far off-topic I will cease this line of conversation, but for the record I hear about these ideas all the time, quite literally every day. Only in the most insular political spheres are people still so focused on the massive American political machine that they donāt hear the widespread ideological questioning and cynicism in the system levied by a massive, probably majority of Americans from all sectors of the political system, even ones far beyond a simple āDemocrat vs. Republicanā mindset. I donāt know where youāve been for the past several years, but if youāre saying that political systems - least of all ones as small and flexible as CSM - canāt be changed, or that people arenāt having these conversations literally in this very thread, then I would advise you to re-read some of this conversation a bit more closely.
Not everyone has enough money to just buy website and advertisement space to run for a political position in a game that already has a substantial monthly subscription fee. I admit that the population of EVE Online has a reputation for being of the older and more wealthy demographics than virtually any other online game, but I donāt think that means you can just ignore substantial economic factors.
Since I do this for a living, I can tell you right now that there are no credible arguments being made that we need to, for instance, change how the House of Representatives or the Senate are elected because too many people of one party are getting elected. Sure, youāve got folks who want to change district boundaries (or gerrymander them) because they perceive that will help their side win more seats, but they arenāt suggesting we need to end the House or restrict the number of members of one party that can be elected. Thatās my point. The guys saying things like repeal the 17th amendment, for instance, are suggesting something thatās completely implausible and they shouldnāt be taken seriously (and basically arenāt).
The system as it stands now has a remedy for the concern that too many Goons are getting elected - non-Goons need to run, run credible campaigns and win. Thatās how you fix it.
Anybody playing this game has enough money for a computer and internet access, as well as the cost of an account (whether thatās in a subscription or the time they spend making isk in game to plex). Yes, I spent money on Facebook ads. Whether they made a difference is hard to say. Other candidates who won didnāt do that. All of this stuff is about priorities, and if winning is a priority for someone, they should be willing to invest the time and money they need to do it. Thatās how any campaign is won, not just in EVE.
I donāt have a list of every time a major systemic political change has been made in a society, but hereās a broad overview of just a few of historyās major political upheavals, suggesting that significant structural change in the real world (let alone in New Eden) is a little bit less than āimplausible.ā
The forum software is telling me Iām responding to the same person too many times, and as this is meant to be a much broader thread thatās probably for the best. Frankly I donāt think itās worth arguing basic historical facts with my own apparent representative. I think my remarks stand up by themselves and thereās not really anything else I have to say that couldnāt already be gleaned from a serious read of my previous statements.
No doubt the CSM has an important effect on the development of the game and the guys who put in the work certainly deserve respect, even if you donāt like their specific viewpoint on a matter.
āLostā might be a slight euphemism hereā¦ but potato pyjama. If he bought votes, he effectively used in-game currency to get himself a flight to Iceland and accomodation, paid from player subscriptions. It would constitute RMT and CCP should do a re-count without those votes. We arenāt Egypt and buying votes is totally undemocratic.
Yes, but politics is not equal to governing. Politicians are meant to the delegates of the people and not attention seeking clowns nor appendages of state institutions. The people rule, even tough many have forgoetten that.
Be it as it may, the CSM is probably more like a council, lobby if you want to see it more cynical (which I donāt, mostly). A CSM that is good for the game will need to be a good consultant to CCP, while keeping their toes wet as much as they can. Thatās surely a hard job and one that isnāt even paid, besides with some glory or tirades.
I think in general it is a good idea to have this council elected by the players, but since vast amounts of the playerbase arenāt strictly organized, the way the elections are held does not lead to a somewhat proper represensation.
The point is not wether or not people like or hate Goons - or like me, donāt have any such strong feelings.
Goons, INIT, Snuff, all the others make what, 10% of the overall playerbase? Taken their size and what they bring to the game I think they should absolutetly be represented in the CSM. They are experts for what they currently do: waiving the uncertainty and wildness of group-based gameplay for the advantages of forming an anonymous bloc, a state if you will. Too large for most people to know each other, certainly with the real need to govern that mass of people, but it comes with the perk of more safety, larger fleets, more support and such.
This means Goon delegates can give good council on question of large scale industry, mega coalitions, regional ressources and such. They cannot represent all the many players who live outside of Null or arenāt organized in such huge blocs. You see, it has nothing to do with sympathy or the lack thereof, it is about what actual knowledge and perspective a CSM delegate can bring to the table.
Itās also not only about Goons. There are simply too many Nullsec delegates and all of them come from large blocs. They canāt give good feedback on what it means to be a smaller entity with a different playstyle in another part of space.
It is all about expertise. No one has all of it and thatās why a CSM needs ot be decently diverse.
Like your example of real-life politics: why is there so much identity politics? I say because in most countries you donāt have proper representation of different groups in society. Itās not about a strong quota or such formal approach, but you need some kind of parity. People get angry and bitter when they realize that there are too many of the same people in office, who as a group just donāt have the diverse life experience to be actual agents of most of the people. I think it just frustrates large enough groups of people who then compensate that with weird things like identity politics.
The corporate guy canāt stand in for small business owners, just as the other way around. When it comes to healthcare, you probably want a nurse or a doctor in the boat rather than only affiliates of the pharma companies. And so on. Again, not for moral reasons or because it looks better, purely for the actual expertise people have due to their role in life and what they do.
Itās obviously not the fault of Goons or Goon candidates to have gained so many seats and it is also not the fault of the general Nullsec delegates to be experts only for their turf. But as I tried to say above, the entire CSM election system needs an overhaul and CCP needs a better concept of how to ensure diverse enough feedback. Now we have too many people who bring the same expertise to the table, with some perspectives completely missing. That endangers the function of the CSM.
Okay, some people want to make this about collision, influence, insider knowledge and so on. Even if that happens, I care only a little. The real issue here is that this very homogenic CSM bears the danger of indulging too much in self-contemplation (meh, german has one word for this entire sentence, my english sucks).
Nuff said. Congrats on your election btw!
P.S. didnāt see the rest of the thread yet
āThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.ā
(or re-elections if thatās an option )
This is exactly the problem I have with most peopleās concept of the CSM.
The idea that somebody in elected office (whether real life or in EVE) canāt truly represent a constituency unless heās part of it is absurd. It throws representative democracy out the window. The entire point of being a representative is to represent - anybody in this job has to be able to listen to and understand the issues faced by communities not his own. The game is too big for a CSM filled with single-issue experts. We all need to have our strengths, but we have to be generalists. And, for the most part, nobody in the game was born an FC, a massive alliance leader, etc.
I made it clear when I started running that I was running to represent everybody. Not nullsec, not just PvP, not just industry - the stuff I do. I wanted to represent everybody. And that means I have to do my homework, talk to people, find out their issues, and then pass them on, as well as provide advice and consult on stuff CCP wants to do. I will do that regardless of which Alliance Iām in, or which coalition. Thatās what we should expect from all CSM members. We donāt elect people to be issue matter experts, we elect them to be representatives. Thatās what they need to do.
Weāve seen changes to most every part of the game, from nullsec to highsec and places in between, over the last year. Even more if you factor in past years. Despite being nullsec heavy, we just saw the biggest expansion of PvE content since the game was released. FW got a fix (although it still needs more), and the ship balance changes impact everybody. There are changes being made across the game and theyāve all benefitted from the CSM. As Aryth and others said today on the Meta Show, the three top things they argued for this year were all for highsec, not nullsec. Thatās what good representatives do.
The current system isnāt perfect, but no system is. I think, however, itās worked pretty well so far and I donāt see a need to change it. After all, a complete nobody that nobody had ever heard of two months just won a slot.
Yes, but I dont think CSM as it is now is ok. I think there should be at least some change. CSM as advisory body could be just picked up by CCP community team from candidates available, offered certain position as advisor. Then people could make conferences by videostreams. If CCP really wants some directions on development they could ask some things, prepare development directions and they would be voted by players and results then taken into account.
The idea that players voting directly for things would magically be different from having a CSM is magically naĆÆve.
What would happen is that the people who voted for game features would be the same people who can be bothered to vote now for CSM (and those people would vote for things that benefit null sec/lowsec/wormhole spaceā¦). The same people who canāt be bothered voting for CSM now (mainly the legions and legions of uninvolved casual high sec players who were are always told make up the majorityhigh sec) wonāt bother directly voting for features either.
Even if CCP made a pop up saying āyou can vote NOWā, most apathetic types would just click it off and keep on mining.
Iām neutral about the CSM (donāt love it, donāt hate it, donāt care really), but one point of sympathy I have for them is that they get blamed for how things are when in reality they have no direct control over anything. People blame them for stupid things like not having WiS or losing the juke box when in reality those things donāt exist in EVE for whatever reasons CCP has decided matters.
TL;DR here is that nothing will change. Same thing happens in real life, people think that if they can just have reform or just vote in new politicians or have a new system for this and that things will change and they will then be happy. The those changes/reforms happen, and nothing really changes.
This is because you canāt change the underlying actual problem. It wasnāt the voting system, the people with power, money, those āothersā getting in the way or whatever. The problem (in game and out) is and always was that people suck and no superficial gerrymandering of minor things is gonna change what 2 million years of evolution couldnātā¦
I think that people would be more participating if they would not have to vote on people they dont know, but direction that will be described and they would know what to expect in future, what improvements. CCP would bring it first, knowing they are capable of delivering it, then people would decide. Of course these directions would have to span across all areas of gameplay at the same time. āNullā or ālowā or āhighā terminology is not what should be inside. Anomalies redesign? Of course. Could be one of them.
And when that happens, rather than a light bulb coming on (where people realize that no voting scheme is ever going to beat human will, creativity and deviousness), the hopeless dreamers will just move on to the next fix it idea.
The CSM was a great idea back in the day when players were sparse and spread out through New Eden, with little to no communication between players and devs. Even Fanfest wasnāt quite as popular in the early days as is now, which is where a lot of feedback and input gets shared between devs and players. Fast forward nearly 15 years later and the devs communicate more with eve players than ever before, sometimes they get it wrong and other times they just say tough, get over it. However, in the grand scheme they do more communicating than before.
I would much rather see a community dev team that interacts more on the forums and social media to listen to and respond to feedback more, then pass that information along in summarized reports to the rest of the dev team to use. I mean at this point the CSM isnāt saying much more than we are screaming on the forums anyway. They tend to find out information around the same time we do as well, so why not just cut out the middle man completely?
If the CSM does stay though, it will need some serious reforms to bringing it to the proper level of representation it deserves, rather than a null block club. Plus I get tired of seeing the same names every year on the list, I mean yeah the argument is if you donāt like the same person, encourage more to run, but thatās a double edged sword as well, players have lost faith in the selection process so little to no one runs and the ones who do consign themselves to losing because they know there are power house candidates that control the majority votes. Itās like trying to get a small town no body to run for leader of a countryā¦without the influence and bank it isnāt going to happen.
The CSM at this point is a jokeā¦has been the past few years but having those extra 4 slots missing really has made it more evident than ever before. That being said, I canāt see CCP changing it anytime soon, they seem pretty happy with it all as is.
Yeah the last six just overlap too much into the first four, you start out describing place then professionā¦I would stick to place and just give multiple reps for them.
2 High Sec
2 Low Sec
2 Null Sec
2 WH
2 New Player
Under that setup, you would have the low sec rep be required to reside in and operate chiefly in low sec space and the same for the other three. The last two slots would not be under 6 months considering thats likeā¦1 CSM summit lol but new player candidates must be under 2 years of playtime. I can tell you, even with just 2 years you are still a noob. This would ensure new players are represented as well as every part of space being occupied plus allow for a few years experience to know what the crap you are talking about when you go to a summit.
The worst thing about this idea is that its based on the false idea that if someone ālivesā somewhere, they will have the best interest of that place in mind.
What WILL happen is that goons will find 2 very friendly high sec players to run, and because high sec people donāt vote, a very minimal get out the vote campaign aimed at like minded folks (like war servers and gankers who are high sec residents) will occur.
And Voila, there is your ārepresentativeā CSM that is STILL DOMINATED BY GOONS AND NULL SEC.
I wonder honestly how people can be so naive about this kind of thing. No plan you all come up with will defeat the determined and sinister creativity of folks like goons.
CCP has learned this time and time again when trying to balance the game, why canāt players learn this too?
EON magazine was one of the things that impressed me about Eve as a busy adult and made me subscribe to Eve. Serious essays about an MMO, and good fiction stories? And original oil painting illustrations? What kind of super cultured MMO can this be? It was also one of the catalysts for the http://podandplanet.wixsite.com/podandplanet annual event, which got a miraculous jumpstart due to EONās and CCP devsā involvement, and has been going strong ever since.