Time to post some fun numbers.

Seeing Seleene's 7k posts ranking him so highly made me wonder just how exclusive 2000 posts would be. I decided to go through every candidate that recieved even a single vote last election and see how many of them would have been eligible to run.

The good news? We would have had a top 7!

The bad news? There were literally only 7 candidates who met that criteria (out of 40 total eligible). I present to you, the "Joke Candidate Lobby Group", featuring a whopping 5 of the lowest 10 vote totals. That 5 of 10 also represents the only non-elected members.

The Mittani
Seleene
Vincent Athena
Skippermonkey
Xenuria
Lyris Nairn
Akirei Scytale

Actually, you know what? I take that back. There's no bad news.

edit: just gonna go ahead and add these quotes in light of this:

O the less drama queen way to look at it would be to say that thousands of characters would be eligible as candidates.

But as I said before, you and your associates will just spam the thread if they announce any changes to the voting system, that will make it harder for you to control. That is 100% guaranteed.

you guys

I can't believe we're even talking about a minimum number of posts. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible (not to mention completely arbitrary) criteria for electing candidates.

What happened to people using their ****ing brains and doing a bit of research into their candidates, gods forbid maybe even talking with them, looking places outside the EVE-O forums (which even some highly effective candidates seldom use), and using your best personal judgement?

If you set some ridiculous (and completely gameable) minimum standard of posts, all you'll do is give players less of a reason to get to know their candidates. I'll say it right now - if you think a number can tell you whether someone belongs on the council, you're so far off from understanding what the CSM is about, how we operate, and how to influence CCP - than you really shouldn't be voting in the first place.

Have we learned nothing from the "likes" primary system??

/emote facepalms of epic proportion

This is the problem right here. You still buy into the disproven bullshit that the council is run by 0.0 special interests and that the currrent voting system somehow prevents minority sub-communities from obtaining representation at the highest level (including Iceland travel). Justify that meme first with some hard facts (one of which would have to be that I don't exist and that I'm not sitting here in Iceland having some brutally naked conversations with EVE's Executive Producer), and maybe more informed, intelligent voters will start taking the "you people" crap seriously.

I can't believe we're even talking about a minimum number of posts. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible (not to mention completely arbitrary) criteria for electing candidates.

Candidates are expected to be active on the CSM forums and participate in the discussion of topics. They are also expected to adhere to the EULA/TOS and carry themselves in a manner that sets an example for other players to follow. In addition, they must be willing and able to travel to Iceland once during their term for a direct meeting with the CCP Council. Should a Representative be unable to attend this meeting, an Alternate will attend in his or her place. Transportation to and from Iceland, plus lodging, lunch, and dinner will be provided by CCP. Candidates are responsible for all other expenses incurred during the trip. Elected Representatives and Alternates are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before commencing their term.

If a candidate is unable to fulfill these requirements, the candidate with the next highest vote tally will be given their position. This process will continue until there are a total of nine Representatives and five Alternates.

What happened to people using their ****ing brains and doing a bit of research into their candidates, gods forbid maybe even talking with them, looking places outside the EVE-O forums (which even some highly effective candidates seldom use), and using your best personal judgement?

I didn't suggest a minimum number of posts, just that the candidates should have a history of communication with the community they are to represent. Of course, this could be done via other media, eg. writing an EVE-related blog, column, a youtube channel or being active on some other EVE forum, but what would be a better channel to reach the wide audience than these official forums?

Also, I happened upon this: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/What_is_the_CSM#Candidate_Eligibility



So it actually already seems to be a prerequisite.

Hans, why do you bother to post here if you don't think it's important to communicate with the players?

Who judges this, exactly? Do you really think its a good idea for CCP to go through the candidate list deciding whether somebody's posting history or blog site is active enough for them to be approved candidates?

The fact is that if some anonymous nobody without any ability or desire to communicate with his fellow players shows up as a CSM candidate, they're probably not going to get voted in anyway.

It specifically says the CSM forums, not eve-o in general. How can it be a pre-requisite of CSM eligibility to post on the hidden NDA'd forums that only CSMs have access to?

There's a world of difference between communication existing and trying to measure and quantify amounts and quality of communication, especially via something as ridiculous as post counts.

Honestly I'm opposed to the idea that every single CSM member needs to be active on the official forums as it is - I think you could easily get away with one or two representatives speaking for the CSM. There's people who gravitate more towards that anyway. Of course, that'd involve things like "unified messages" and "communication strategies", two things this current CSM seems to have none of, so vOv.

The CCP employees dealing with CSM would judge that. I don't really see it as an impossible task.

Really? It's happened before, since all it takes now is a big enough alliance backing their candidate.

Do you agree with the view that a CSM member should communicate with EVE players outside their corp/alliance?

If you do not mind, I'll ask another question.

Have someone noticed that CSM and the official forums are useless unless you have a good command of English?

Clearly, EVE has a very international user base, but also should be obvious that an undetermined percentage (but I guess high) of users simply do not speak enough English to follow the thread of discussions.

In the best case, they can use Google Translate, Wordreference, and other tools to make yourself understood and get a general idea of the discussion. It's what I do, but personally, I do because I want the theme of WiS and disgusted me to see that has been abandoned for all Retribution and 2013.

You have to be very convinced and be a little crazy to even attempt to follow a couple of topics on forums without a good command of English. From the Spanish/Latin-American I know, most barely speaks English and uses the help of the players who do speak to learn to play. I guess Germans, Russians and Japanese have it easier because they have localized clients, and even their own subforums, but I doubt that anyone in the CSM is able, if necessary, take a topic that one subforums and raise it to the CSM.

So, how many voters do not vote because they simply are not able to understand the subject on which is voted?

I wonder how many players are doomed to not see and not hear about the issues that affect them, and if CCP is losing a valuable resource to not listen and not talk to these people?

Just focus on getting more people to vote. A pop up on login you have choose to vote or not before you get in the game.

Simple and i Like this idea. it should encourage more people to actually vote.

However how many will just pick a random character to get the screen over and done with could be an issue. This also doesnt remove the issue large power blocks will have, but then again, i dont think anything will.

I would like a system where i could have 2 votes:
- one for the player i want to ellect to the CSM.
- one for the player i don't want to ellect to the CSM (like a downvote)

I would like a system where i could have 2 votes:
- one for the player i want to ellect to the CSM.
- one for the player i don't want to ellect to the CSM (like a downvote)

maybe we can have: Liquid Democracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8

Also, even compulsory voting might do the trick in breaking the patterns. As I said previously, and somebody else said also, at the login screen it is the best point to insert a voting popup. Give people one week to see it and choose and we will have informed voters making the best choice for themselves.