Last night I was reading Jester's latest post about the silence from the CSM over the past month since the Spring CSM Summit. My first reaction was, "what do you mean, they won't shut up!" Then it hit me; he was looking at the inactivity on their blogs and the failure to publish the minutes from the summit. In other words, the most prolific blogger in the Eve blogosphere is holding the CSM to his standards of writing output. After all, the CSM is made up of 11 members so why shouldn't they publish more words?
I think that CSM 7 is attempting to address the two major weaknesses of CSM 6: the lack of communications and the lack of details in the minutes. Let me address the second point first. As Jester reports, the minutes apparently will resemble a telephone book. At least no one can say that people will not know what their representatives say and think, right? I do agree with Jester that the effort will prove counter-productive and that the minutes needed to come out earlier to try to keep interest in the CSM high.
As for the lack of posting on individual blogs, I just have to point out that the written word is not the only way to get the CSM's message out to the public. When I wrote earlier that CSM members won't shut up, I meant it. The CSM has frequently made appearances on Eve Radio and the numerous Eve podcasts. Given that I try to listen to the Eve Radio talk shows and as many podcasts as I can, I have heard a lot of opinions from our CSM representatives over the past month or so. I know that I have heard Seleene and Hans Jagerblitzen on Bigcountry's Thursday morning talk show and Hans did some faction warfare stuff on DJ Funky Bacon's show on a Saturday morning.
As a service I'll list all of the podcast appearances of the CSM that I know of. Besides getting to hear the opinions of the CSM, anyone tuning in will get to hear some of the fine talent that makes up the current Eve podcasting community.
12 June: Seleene did a one hour interview on Voices From The Void about the summit.
14 June: Alekseyev Karrde appeared on the Crossing Zebras podcast talking about the war dec situation amongst other things. To only listen to the interview, go to 57:20 of the podcast.
20 June: Elise Randolph did an interview on Ten EVEning News.
1 July: Alekseyev Karrde is one of the hosts of the Noir. Mercenary Group's podcast, Declarations of War, and one of the segments focuses on CSM issues. I am not sure where to find episode 27 but the link will lead to episode 28.
10 July: Hans Jagerblitzen appeared on a 2 1/2 hour roundtable on faction warfare on Ten EVEning News.
Given all the appearances, I think the CSM is trying to get its message out to the player base. I don't know if more people listen to podcasts than read blogs, but the effort is there. If I missed anything since the summit, please let me know and I will update the list.
