An Unruly CSM

My last day of vacation was spent mostly taking care of housekeeping.  Unpacking, doing laundry, grocery shopping.  That kind of thing.  In EVE, I restocked my store as much as possible, started my planetary interaction colonies up, and started the production lines working.  I still need to do some ice mining because I'm out of liquid ozone, but not a real serious problem.

Of course, just because I'm having a quiet time doesn't mean nothing is happening in EVE Online.  Our little band of intrepid internet spaceship politicians that makes up the 9th Council of Stellar Management are making some noise before CCP has even published a dev blog announcing the results of the election.

The CSM apparently decided to change the structure of the organization and eliminate officers.  Mike Azariah posted on the forums:

"We of the CSM are considering the shift to internally assigned duties without the titles that go along with them. We will continue to do our tasks and people may step forward as things present themselves. One might take over being the whip for the minutes, another focus on being the liaison to the devs. Me, I have stepped forward as a veteran of the Eve-O forums and will let you know when things are happening. "Or answer questions. "I am good at making tinfoil hats. Please do not force me to use that skill. "This is NOT an attack on any CSM9's worthiness for the position but rather the thinking that we have outgrown the previous structure. "Questions? Comments? Fire away"

Now, those who are regular readers of the blog know I'm a bit of a stickler for following the rules.  And this unilateral eliminating of the officer positions definitely flies in the face of the CSM White Paper:

"Within seven days of the general election, the Representatives must hold an internal vote to determine Officers: a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, and Vice-Secretary. If there are two candidates for a position, the winner is determined by a simple majority vote; if there are multiple candidates, then multiple ballots are cast, with each ballot eliminating the candidate with the least number of votes. In the event of a tie between any two candidates, the representative who was elected to the CSM with the highest ranking from the election will cast the tie-breaking vote." [emphasis mine]

In this case, however, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the discomfort of CCP Dolan as he figures out what to do next.  I had a reason for highlighting the first phrase of the above excerpt from the White Paper.  After all, he threw out the rules first.

In the dev blog announcing the election for CSM 9 in March, he wrote:

"Additionally, after discussion with the CSM, we will be adding a new rule regarding the selection of officers. This year we will delay the selection of officers until the first CSM summit. We found that selecting officers immediately after the election meant that people were selected on their reputation instead of their actual contribution to the CSM process."

I wonder if the newly elected CSM would have thought to get rid of the officer positions if CCP Dolan had decided to stick with the procedures in the White Paper.  By not following the rules, he basically stated that having the officers was not important for the first quarter of the CSM.  If the CSM can function that long without officers, then why can't the elected body go the entire year without them?

I really hadn't planned on writing too much about the CSM on the blog.  But the bunch of representatives we elected is showing early on that they could prove difficult to handle.  If so, I might have to write about them more often.