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LaVista Vista
Conservative Shenanigans Party
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Posted - 2009.08.25 20:29:00 -
[1]
Edited by: LaVista Vista on 25/08/2009 20:30:54 Post:
The CSM concept was revived about 14 months ago by now. It has been a bumpy ride, but does it deliver? And if not, how does one fix that? HereÆs my take on it:
When CSM1 took first took office, it was dropped into the position with very little help from CCP: We had to make up all our procedures on our own and we had a fair fight, trying to justify our existence and requests for resources from CCP departments(A private forum, email system, a wiki). One might call it a social experiment. And I think itÆs quite fair to call it that.
The CSM was tasked to structure itself beyond a simple distribution of roles given by CCP. This has the inherent feature of creating an organic organization. However given the lack of challenges it faces, itÆs not going to get "pushed" into a stronger state. ItÆs like survival of the fittest, without any sort of threats to specieÆs existence: The specie will survive but not evolve into the ideal shape.
So before I draw any conclusions based on this, I want to put the CSM into the larger scheme of things when it comes to communication inside a community?
If we look back at my earlier blog posts, I have discussed how a successful way of keeping customers happy is all about communication. Some people did note that I maybe was a bit "harsh". And I think thatÆs fair to say. However I think that itÆs more the case of the ideas and conclusions being put forward were very idealistic and slightly over-drawn in order to make a point.
Once again, IÆm going to take basis in the idea that communication("Feedback") is a desirable thing to have. How might one apply this to the CSM?
The CSM is a democratically elected body of players. Already there, thereÆs the idea of an election where people vote, and players are elected. ThereÆs a feedback loop which is "solid". People can go and check who got the most votes and see some sort of progress based on their interaction. However after that, the CSM sort of becomes a black-box operation.
ItÆs not that itÆs impossible to find out what the CSM is up to. However the time and effort required getting a sense of progress being made by the CSM is extremely high. This means that people are going to lose faith in the CSM very quickly. It means that thereÆs no incentive to go and take active part in the community around the CSM. It means that the CSM is going to become irrelevant to the masses.
How could the CSM be made relevant? ItÆs all about having a feedback loop that gives people a sense of control and influence. This creates a sense of communication, which is critical.
Right now, the CSM is stuck to a patched part of the eve-online forum where people can give an issue-thread a thumbs up. And this is hardly desirable due to
1. The fact that only a small part of the community takes part in the forum: 2. ItÆs prone to alt-spamming 3. ThereÆs no way of getting a feedback loop going.
The problem isnÆt directly technological, as much as itÆs about managing the lifetime of a CSM issue. That means that all the way from when itÆs first raised by a member of the community, till itÆs taken care of by CCP, it needs to be transparent what the issue is about, what has been done and what is being done about the issue.
Right now, the issue starts out at the forum, is taken into a wiki format and then passed onto CCP. From that, minutes are created and placed on the wiki, separate from the issue.
This is a major problem. And quite frankly, itÆs a technological problem more than anything else.
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LaVista Vista
Conservative Shenanigans Party
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Posted - 2009.08.25 20:30:00 -
[2]
Edited by: LaVista Vista on 25/08/2009 20:32:18 How to fix it: In essence, things need to be well-integrated. The wiki-system isnÆt really a bad system; however itÆs currently a half-assed solution that doesnÆt do much more than simply providing a way of storing and tracking changes to a document.
HereÆs I suggest is done:
A system is created that allows for submission of issues that adheres to standardized templates. It could be a wiki-like system that contains:
- Voting(Up and down)
- Discussion
- Public editing is allowed until the issue is marked as being under discussion by the CSM(Done when the issue is voted on by the CSM). The CSM members could have to accept changes. (Optional)
- Progress tracking
- Prioritization by both the CSM and the public on a 2-month basis.
This raises the barrier to entry a bit. However this could be fixed by creating a staged system where an Assembly-hall-like forum is kept in place. This ought to be the place where rough issues are raised and the community is encouraged to create issues in accordance to the template, and then submitted it to the system.
The result of a system like this would be that a portal is created that allows for easy access to all relevant information about the CSM and allows for easy feedback.
Voting Right now, the public voting aspect is rather much of a farce. As pointed out earlier, itÆs kind of a slapped-on thing.
Allowing for voting by both the public and the CSM on a per-account basis creates a metric that can be used in the overall scheme of things when it comes to raising the issue to CCP. IÆll talk about that again.
Discussion We already have a system that sort-of allows for discussion. However itÆs currently not very useful due to the fact you are required to post in the thread to throw a thumbs-up. While having to post could be argued as a barrier to entry for voting for an issue, but thereÆs not any other requirement for the post, allowing for empty posts making it impossible to discuss anything.
Progress tracking One of the major things I hear from people when I discuss the CSM with them, is that once the issue has been posted to the forum, itÆs hard to find out what happened to it. First of all you have to figure out what meeting it might have been raised in, find the minutes and then find the CSM-CCP meeting minutes.
A very simple system could be put in place to allow for keeping records of all aspects of the lifetime of an issue. That includes the raw meeting logs from the CSM meeting, the voting result and finally the meeting minutes from the CCP-CSM meeting.
All this information ought to be contained inside the issue page itself. One might even suggest that if there are relevant patch-notes, these could be tagged despite CCPÆs previous stance on attributing patch-notes with a CSM tag. But if they donÆt want to do it, I guess the CSM will have to do it.
Prioritization One of the crucial aspects of the CSM issue-raising is the prioritization of the issues. Thus far, it has been done by each CSM member at the end of a 2-month cycle, give each issue a value between 1 and N(N being the amount of issues).
One of the main purposes of the CSM, as far as IÆm aware, is to get CCP a sense of what is most important to the community. Hence, we ought to extend the prioritization job to also include the public.
Going by the same rules, 1 to N for each issue, players should be able to give their opinion of which of the raised CSM issues are the most important to them.
This gives a better sample of what the community wants. And itÆs virtually free in terms of time, as itÆs a voluntary thing which people can do.
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LaVista Vista
Conservative Shenanigans Party
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Posted - 2009.08.25 20:30:00 -
[3]
Edited by: LaVista Vista on 25/08/2009 20:32:38 How does this all fit together? So now that I have explained what kind of tools ought to be available for the CSM, you are probably wondering how it fits into the grand scheme of things?
As established in earlier posts, communication is extremely important. Right now the CSMÆs largest problem is that thereÆs no sort of feedback loop. ItÆs a black box where people put up issues and give a thumbs-up, and if they are lucky, the might even know if an issue was raised. After that, the communication stops and issues do not evolve beyond being a document in a wiki system.
By allowing for more ôconsistentö voting on issues as well as public prioritization, you give people a sense of having influence and control. They can see that their action makes a difference, and thatÆs crucial.
However as times goes by, having once put in a vote doesnÆt make much of a difference. ThatÆs where progress tracking comes into the picture. By making progress information easily accessible, you get another feedback loop(Assuming that thereÆs actual progress).
This way, the CSM becomes another viable mean of communication between the player-base and CCP.
Conclusion The CSM suffers from not being pushed to becoming more than it is, and is seemingly not given the much-needed development time in order to give it the tools it needs. In order to the CSM to evolve and not stagnate, progress has to be made and tools have to be provided for pushing the boundaries of whatÆs possible with a player-elected democracy.
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Drake Draconis
Shadow Cadre
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Posted - 2009.08.25 22:01:00 -
[4]
Ye have me thumb sir.
o7
/supported ========================= CEO of Shadow Cadre http://www.shadowcadre.com ========================= |
Omber Zombie
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Posted - 2009.08.26 00:11:00 -
[5]
----------------------
My Blog |
Herschel Yamamoto
Agent-Orange
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Posted - 2009.08.26 05:45:00 -
[6]
The failings of the tools the CSM is expected to work with have been an omnipresent barrier to the body working at peak efficiency for over a year now, and you've come up with a very clean way of eliminating just about all of those problems. I like this proposal a lot - not even necessarily because the idea of supporting the CSM with the necessary tools is a new one, but also because this is an intelligent and plausible way of getting CCP to do it.
Fully supported.
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Garthran
CINDER INDUSTRIALS United Outworlders
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Posted - 2009.08.26 05:54:00 -
[7]
I support this idea. ------------------------------------------------ Suicide drones?
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van Uber
Swedish Aerospace Inc
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Posted - 2009.08.26 11:27:00 -
[8]
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Sargeant Bash
The-Secret-Service
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Posted - 2009.08.26 12:06:00 -
[9]
OK I support this, but heres my take on things. CSM was supposed to be that bridge between player and CCP, long awaited and much needed..YAY..
But since its inception I hear absolutley nothing from CSM members, apart from the goons smacking on COAD :) I know they are there, but where? what are they doing? Whats happening? They should be almost acting like the community union.
Sometimes its seems members are doing this for kudos and not for the real purpose it was meant for. So i really would liek to see more communication, whats happening with issues, minutes and agendas of meetings, more communication on the forums, discussions etc.
Let us know you are there and actually doing something!
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Marxime
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Posted - 2009.08.26 12:22:00 -
[10]
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Saju Somtaaw
Diiamond Heavy Industries MagiTech Corp
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Posted - 2009.08.26 23:31:00 -
[11]
---- --- ---
http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&thread |
mazzilliu
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Posted - 2009.08.27 03:48:00 -
[12]
you know, a simpler solution to that problem is just if CSM members update the status in their own sponsored threads in the assembly hall, with a link to the meeting minutes that the issue was contained in. I see old CSM-voted-on threads being bumped up again all the time, and people don't realize the issue is already done.
MAZZILLIU 2009. CHANGE I CAN IMPOSE ON YOU. |
Omber Zombie
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Posted - 2009.08.27 03:56:00 -
[13]
mazz, I used to do that, but when your reply isn't the first or last post in the thread, people post in it anyway. Th eonly way to stop it getting bumped is to ask for it to get locked, which only helps when the issue has actually been implemented into the game. ----------------------
My Blog |
mazzilliu
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Posted - 2009.08.27 04:21:00 -
[14]
maybe there can be a bit of coding done to allow CSM members to lock only the threads of issues that have been raised, after having the final word on the issue, in that forum section only.
I guess nobody liked csm having mod powers but if the mod actions were logged and there are very specific rules as to what can be locked, then there is very little potential for abuse.
besides CSM not having the ability to organize the discussion happening in the domain they are supposed to be running is absolutely silly. limited mod powers are definitely called for, within our domain and safeguarded to prevent abuse by anyone.
It's also far easier then implementing a whole new system for voting issues up and down which wont be a whole lot more used or accessible then the current system, with these tweaks
MAZZILLIU 2009. CHANGE I CAN IMPOSE ON YOU. |
Serenity Steele
Dynamic Data Distribution
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Posted - 2009.08.27 14:54:00 -
[15]
≡v≡ Strategic Maps in Eve-Online Store | eve-maps.com |
William Charmer
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Posted - 2009.08.27 18:03:00 -
[16]
I'd say there is an opportunity for CCP to really show exceptional appreciation towards the playerbase by, how should I say, actually creating a functioning player operated middle-hands to deviate the development of this game into new spheres. I endorse this possibility.
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