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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

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.

14 comments:

  1. The CSM offices are virtually meaningless. They don't help any CSM get any extra work done. They confer no authority over other CSMs or CCP people; all they do is give false impressions to people outside the process and waste time on internal admin that would be spent spent communicating with CCP.

    CSM8 did the officers vote in a single day and then never again gave the smallest of fucks about them or referred to them in any way.

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    1. I got the impression from reading Ripard's blog that the positions did matter to a limited degree. Or did the titles just get aligned to the roles people played anyway?

      One thing I should have added is that CSM would have to do what they are doing anyway to conduct business until officers are elected. Making them change the way they conduct business in the middle of the term is stupid.

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  2. I really fail to see any issue here. Initially it was thought to be a good idea, subsequently it has turned out to be less useful than expected. Consequently it's been ditched in favour of a system anticipated to work better.

    That's defined, by most folks, as progress.

    Now - if it turns out not to work better then what's the impact? Well - calling an election from the CSM would seem to require little in the way of effort or resources. Yay \o/ we get to try and progress stuff with little in the way of risk. That is, unless you believe that dire things will happen in the absence of named positions? If so you've failed to provide even speculation as to what they might be,

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  3. You make me feel bad. I'm not that complex on why I suggested this. :P

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    1. Your suggestion makes more sense than electing the officers in the middle of the term. I forgot to put in the reason why, because it was getting late. See my reply to Malcanis.

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  4. MMMMmm.... Tempest inna Teacup right off the bat... \o/

    Oh and +1 W-spacer

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    1. Maybe more like a Rifter in a teacup, depending on how Dolan reacts.

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  5. As the CSM has evolved, the need for the officer positions has diminished -- culminating in CSM8, where they were basically symbolic, because almost everyone on CSM was a worker bee (as opposed to earlier CSMs where 5-7 people did most of the work).

    That is why you didn't see me communicating much as Chairman -- it simply wasn't necessary.

    So this isn't CSM9 being unruly; this is CSM9 working out how THEY want to organize themselves.

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  6. Yarr! Anarchy! ;)

    More properly, anarchy by the strict definition, rather than the rioting that many people associate it with. Where we see something that needs done, and do it, rather than refer back to someone else.

    :)

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  7. Since it is up to the CSM to choice the best of the best among them, they took their "SOVereignty" (see what I did here :) a step further, and iterated upon it.
    To quote CCP Fozzie at fanfest 2014; as always eve players know it better then CCP.

    If you look at this in one way, it could be a test to see how far the CSM will "grab power" for it's own with baby steps, or you can see it in another way were the CSM figured out the CSM is not a Company or an Union for the Capsuleers per se, and that it doesn't need fixed positions.

    I am very curious how CCP Dolan will handle this, either approve it silently or expressively and setting a precedent or not to lose any face and say the whitepaper is outdated and has to be indeed looked at.
    The other way is to disapprove and first ask, then perhaps Tell, and later on Give an ultimatum to the CSM to choice their fixed positions.

    Great to see some live content from the CSM, may the best tin foil spaceship politician win \o/

    Regards, a Freelancer

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  8. Did I miss CCP's announcement of the results of the CSM elections? I didn't see anything in the dev blogs.

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    1. Turnout was so low it was embarrasing. CCP is sitting on the numbers for a while. When they think it's a quiet period where no one will notice, they'll release them.

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    2. Wrong blog, Mike Azariah is handing out tinfoil hats, not Noizy. :-P

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