I'm starting to do my due diligence as many of the contenders for seats on the eighth incarnation of Eve Online's Council of Stellar Management begin the political battle ahead of the official start of the race. Those interested in the early jockeying for power should visit the CSM 8 page for the Crossing Zebras podcast where Xander is doing a great job conducting 30 minute interviews with each of the hopefuls willing to submit themselves to his hard-hitting interviews. So far I have only made it through the first ten but so far I've found the interviews very helpful.
As we go through the process a concern has arisen that some of the people running should not run as they would help the Eve community more from a position outside the power structure than within the halls of CCP. I think the biggest example is Ripard Teg. Jester's Trek is one of the biggest and most influential blogs in the Eve blogosphere and Ripard is a frequent critic of the current CSM. I think some players want a critical voice on the outside to help keep the CSM from doing anything too foolish.
So do we really need to fear living in a post-Jest-ocolyptic world where Ripard ascends to Reykjavík to sit at the right hand of God? I don't believe that the NDA will completely shut down Ripard's blogging but if he really does have to spend 20 hours a week performing his duties I don't see how his output can't decrease unless he truly is the robot many in the blogosphere believe. And when he does blog I don't see how he is not going to temper his criticisms, especially when he has to pull punches to ensure he does not break the NDA. But if Alekseyev Karrde could continue doing the Declarations of War podcast then Ripard can keep blogging.
Some people act like Ripard's is the only one shining a spotlight on the CSM. If Ripard wins then the loudest voice I know of in the blogosphere doing the same is Poetic Stanziel. He is definitely not afraid to put up controversial positions on his blog Poetic Discourse although his quality of output is inconsistent. At times brilliant he sometimes winds up deleting and rewriting posts that he publishes in the heat of the moment. In a post-Jest-ocolyptic world Poetic would become an even greater voice in Eve's blogosphere.
Of course, for those fearful of that prospect I will conclude with the old Eve adage, HTFU. Anyone who doesn't like the situation enough to cry about it loudly on the Internet should think about joining the Eve blogosphere instead. I know from personal experience that blogging software like Blogger is free. All it costs is a little time. Who knows, maybe you'll emerge as the next Ripard Teg.
(Note: In the interest of full disclosure I should admit that Ripard blogging less would be bad for The Nosy Gamer. Over the last twelve months the blog has received 22% of its traffic from Jester's Trek.)
