Kirith Kodachi: Fixing The CSM Voting

By Kirith Kodachi | Jan 25th 2012 5:49PM
23 Comments

We are proud to bring you the stories, opinions and musings of a long time pilot who has dabbled in everything New Eden has to offer, he writes and podcasts about his opinions and adventures at Ninveah.com

Kirith Kodachi: Fixing The CSM Voting

Depending on which definition of “Fixing” you apply, the title of this blog post is very ambiguous. And that’s the point.

Ever since CSM 6 was voted in there been much discussion about how to ensure equal representation on the CSM. (In fact, there was discussion before that but the null sec takeover in the 6th iteration really prompted the panels to wax about it.) CSM 5 was primary devoid of a lot of null sec representation and some of the comments in the minutes there caused much consternation amoungst the alliance elites and caused the backlash and voting blocs to arise. This in turn caused hand-wringing and proclamations of doom.

The major concern of the talking heads is that as long as null sec alliances care about the CSM they will continue to dominate it and thus the conversation with CCP and its developers. There may be more pilots in high sec but they are splintered and/or apathetic. “How,” they moan, “can we ensure that representation is equal?”

The most common refrain is that the CSM should have 2 representatives each from null sec, high sec, and low sec as well as a single rep from wormhole space. This is how it works in real life, right? However the comparison to meatspace politics quickly falls down when you realize the fundamental difference: Bill the player lives in a house in a town in a country; Kirith Kodachi lives wherever the fuck he wants.

Any scheme to divvy up seats on the CSM fails because while you can assign roles to seats you can with any certainty assign roles to players. A player may put himself forth as a High Sec Candidate while have four or five alts in a null sec alliance and the votes associated with that bloc. Or another candidate may live part time in wormhole space and part time in low sec; which seat is he up for? And if he chooses to run for one, what prevents his buddies in the other area from throwing their votes for him anyways?

You could try and limit votes by forcing pilots into specific arenas much politicians can only run for office in their home state (and that never gets gamed, right?!) but remember we get one vote per account, not pilot. An account with three characters all in different zones gets to vote where? In any of the three?

Furthermore, if you put yourself forward as a null sec candidate but during the election period your alliance gets booted out of null sec and you move into low sec, which seat are you running for? Can you still represent null sec interests if you spend the term in CSM as living in low sec?

Any effort to codify and legislate voting into specific roles or seats fails because pilots are plastic in their own careers and living environs and Eve players are rarely focused on a single style of game-play through a single character. And stringent restrictions will simply be gamed by savvy and organized voting blocs (e.g. null sec alliances) while the individuals will be left out in the cold regardless.

I say we let the process evolve organically. The null sec voting alliances came about as a response to the evolving CSM and if we let it I’m sure a counter-reaction to null sec dominance will come from the players, not over-engineering processes. But only if we let it.

- Kirith Kodachi

If you would like to send intel or contribute, feel free to use the form below:

[spoiler show="Submit Intel Here"]

[/spoiler]

Send us Intel/Corrections via dropbox or shoot us an e-mail

Tags
  • Goon

    Looks like very important article to me

  • Name

    Yes!

  • herp_de_derp

    So Mittens should or shouldn't be in the CSM? I'm confuzzled.

    • TheTrueFact

      ahh ur name is pure sweet irony here!

  • Gavingoodrich

    Nice writeup.

  • Akrasjel Lanate

    what ?

  • guest

    Totally agree. I was siding with this rationale since this discussion started.

    Porsonally, I will vote for the candidade that better demostrates to have a good grasp of all game-play styles of Eve, and that can consistently work for the improvement of the game as a whole.

  • dreamersofreality

    cut up the representatives in something much like how the US dose with there senators as in, 1 rep from the drone space 1 rep from guresta space, ect ect. For high sec and low sec you do the same thing, split it up by race, so 2 from amarr space (1 high sec 1 low sec) and so on and so forth for the other races. This would, at best, give CCP an idea of where these people are from and who they represent. Some of the voting may get a little con-fuddled but it wouldn't mean that say 1 alliance of over 7k people that there votes would not overshadow the rest of null. So you would get names like the Drone State, Guresta Sate, Angel Cartel State and you get a rep from each of those states. After-all the game already has its "lines" drawn all over the place via the types of rats that there are.

    • weilo

      The ideas in your post make it obvious that you completely missed the point of the article, unless you forgot to prefix your post with "This article made me realize why the following wouldn't come even close to working"

  • TheTrueFact

    good article, traditional seat allocation for something like CSM in Eve doesnt work well cause people move around much more often, their circumstances change.
    The one thing i think does stay is character age. So we could use that as a basis for knowledge of the game and a certain amount of depth in the social structures of eve.

    CSM could be co-ordinated in terms of character age… 2 CSM's more than 5 years old, 2 CSM's between 3 and 5 years old, 2 CSM's between 1 and 3 years old and 1 wildcard CSM that could fall in to either of those categories.

    that way you represent the relatively new player experience and freshness of approach from someone that hasnt been too "conditioned" to a CCP/Eve way of thinking, you have mid level players able to critique some advanced features, and you have extremely experienced veteran players able to evaluate ideas and changes that could span many areas that mid range players dont initially consider.

    just a thought.

    • Just no

      You, it's you! You are the reason hisec won't get a seat. Everyone thinks he's a genious and sprouts his shit out trying to grab votes instead of keeping brain farts to himself and actually vote for someone with a clue.

    • Trapped

      Why would we want people who don't understand eve(newbies) giving input on how to fix eve?

      The only thing a noobies opinion should matter for is the NPE, and imo, that should be handled by the ISD division created for just that(STAR, iirc). They can give random surveys to newbies to gather feedback.

  • Tyson

    All null sec alliance do to get thier seats redirect thier pilots to vote as soon as they log onto thier forums, or whatever they know thier members log into everyday. Guys in high sec can't do anything like that so I suspect we won't actually see any high sec in the CSM 7.

    • Horde ratter

      chribba we will be the voice of the miner and too be fair is one of the most widly know player in eve even some nul sec player would back him

    • Trapped

      If you think all, or even most nullsec pilots check their alliance forums every day, or even every week, you are in for a shock.

      Leadership is lucky is they can get us to check our corp mails ;)

  • Some Guy

    I vote Mintrolio for CSM7, best poster in eve needs more power.

    • Horde ratter

      UAXdeath will get my vote

  • TEST Guy

    I heerby cast my vote for Micheal Boltan, All the problems of new eden and political strife will come to an end. It would be as if we're all in harrmony! Cast your vote NOW to ensure your future.

    Paid for by Citizens free of Goons…

  • ex-NC

    Null sec alliances r organized behind one member or 10. Because nobody is organized in high sec u want to reduce the voting power of those entities. Well thats not correct. If u want to gain power and organize high sec ppl motivate them. Run a blog. Promote ur job.

    The main reason why high sec is doomed (doesnt realize its power) is because everyone is on their own. Well in null sec u dont survive alone. So u tag and depends on ur corp mates, alliance mates and/or coalition. Thats the big difference in EVE. In 0.0 u have players passioned for their HC and corp/alliance, in high sec u just have ppl that care about the next incursion or mining or missioning.

  • Random Miner

    Another huge problem for high sec'ers, is that most of the time we have no idea who in the hell most of these people are. I have spoken to an inumerable amount of people who don't even have the foggiest who mittens is. So reading blogs etc. gives them no guarentee of finding a candidate for them. Mitrani could say he's the voice of high sec and a bunch of high sec bastards reading it, not knowing anything of goon scum, think he's their guy. For them it's like an election but none of the candidates are running commercials. Lord knows that how people in the states know who to vote for…. lol

    Also, lots of high sec'ers don't even know what they CSM is, or (like myself) have serious doubts of it's worth, and the most thought they give it is pressing the "X" on the EVE start up screen anouncing it. Especially since most living in the high are some of the most carefree people in the game, not wanting a war, or worry about griefers, just wanting to cruise around and socialize with online buddies during the free time they have in the day.

    Firmly entrenched high sec'ers will just never have a great power in the csm because of this.

  • wtfrustupid

    I think the High Sec carebears are missing the entire point of these so-called "Massive Null sec power blocs" and of nullsec in general. Not a single action submitted to CCP from the CSM adversely affected High sec'rs, but instead have made the game better as a whole by bringing back spaceships and to hell with pants. I would advise highsec'rs to vote for their "favorite" nullsec power bloc because as a whole, these individuals have a much better grasp of the game, mechanics, and purpose than any single carebear.

    Oh, also…balance incursion. 5 Minute vanguards + 10 people in high sec + zero risk = 1bil an hour per pilot…that's just retarded.

  • wtfrustupid

    I think the High Sec carebears are missing the entire point of these so-called "Massive Null sec power blocs" and of nullsec in general. Not a single action submitted to CCP from the CSM adversely affected High sec'rs, but instead have made the game better as a whole by bringing back spaceships and to hell with pants. I would advise highsec'rs to vote for their "favorite" nullsec power bloc because as a whole, these individuals have a much better grasp of the game, mechanics, and purpose than any single carebear.

  • anonymous

    I think the High Sec carebears are missing the entire point of these so-called "Massive Null sec power blocs" and of nullsec in general. Not a single action submitted to CCP from the CSM adversely affected High sec'rs, but instead have made the game better as a whole by bringing back spaceships and to hell with pants. I would advise highsec'rs to vote for their "favorite" nullsec power bloc because as a whole, these individuals have a much better grasp of the game, mechanics, and purpose than any single carebear.