When Brisc Rubal was removed from the CSM and banned from Eve I avoided rushing to judgement despite the temptation to “slam dunk” on the whole thing. While the political and military implications of the situation interested me, I never found pleasure in the personal grief. There is a tendency among some to revel and insist in the torment of other people unnecessarily. Though I maintained some skepticism I hoped CCP for the sake of the company image had gotten the story right. To the dismay of some, CCP back tracked its claim regarding Brisc and the two other players in question and unbanned them all completely. Brisc has resigned as CSM as a result. As far as we know CCP for some reason decided to follow the words of another CSM member and just on the hearsay of their word had brought down the ban hammer. It seems really odd and out of character but anything is possible.
Here is another possibility. Maybe Brisc and company did knowingly take advantage of privileged knowledge to benefit themselves in game. Maybe CCP had enough evidence to ban them by CCP standards. Question is would they have enough evidence to stand up in a real life court of law? Brisc’s real life career as a politician made the banning particularly unique. Brisc wouldn’t just be banned from online spaceship pixels. He would be in violation of a real corporation’s non-disclosure agreement which would likely translate very badly for Brisc. Understandably it’s not hard to imagine someone in his position pushing back on this, perhaps even being inclined to press the matter into the courts where CCP would have to prove “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that he violated the NDA. And so CCP officially forgives/unbans Brisc while the deal is made that he resigns as CSM. This is the only possibility we can really fathom beyond CCP just dropping the ball.
Like the previous article on the subject, there’s really not much else to address on the matter specifically. However it does relate quite well to the general CSM issue overall. Specifically how half or more (depending on the date) of the CSM represents a single coalition. Wouldn’t the CSM work better if we had more varied representation? If we have one person from a particular alliance, do we really need 3 or 4 others? The issue is further worsening when we consider the state of nullsec and the increasing number of safety nets provided for these coalitions. Space has becoming increasingly safe and most players seem to have forgotten the old “HTFU” mindset of years past. When you have the CSM filled with similarly minded people year after year those are the only perspectives CCP sees.
The solution is simple. People elected to the CSM are put in a pool from which CCP picks and chooses from building their own CSM team. This way the metagaming aspect of the CSM is minimized and instead the process can focus more on providing vital game feedback to CCP. Imagine a CSM where you have an even mix of nullsec, lowsec, highsec, and wormhole space representatives from differing entities. Some may say this is an “infringement of the will of the people.” I would argue that since elections are decided by coalition leaders with pre-set ballots, that’s already been done. The “authentic democracy” argument goes out the window. Having the player base create a pool of people from which CCP can pick a CSM for their needs will suit the needs of the game much better than the meta game manipulation currently in play.
