Massively's EVE Online CSM candidate roundup
This week is voting week for EVE Online players as the fifth edition of the democratically elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM) gets underway. 49 approved candidates are in the running for just nine seats on the council, with an extra five alternate candidates agreeing to step in should any members of the council be forced to leave during their term. The council's job is to act as a go-between to help EVE players communicate major gameplay issues to the development team. In the two years the council has operated, they've become an essential part of CCP's development methodology.
The CSM plays a vital role in EVE's development and it's important that the right people for the job are elected. For those that don't normally vote in the elections, figuring out what each candidate brings to the table can be a difficult and daunting task. In this absolutely massive three-page feature, we give a run-down of all 49 candidates entered in the current election, from previous CSM members to new active campaigners and the relatively unknown pilots with little to no campaign.
When you're ready to vote, follow this link to the voting page and click the vote button to the right of your chosen candidate. Remember to get your vote in before May 19th when polls close! The results will be published on May 28th, when we see who will be representing the EVE player-base to CCP for the coming year.
Why should I vote?
While not everyone is convinced of the council's usefulness, long-time EVE player Seleene is adamant that "the CSM can, and has been, invaluable in elevating certain issues to a point where they cannot be ignored." If anyone has a useful perspective on the CSM, it would be Seleene. He was employed by CCP for a time under the name "CCP Abathur", where he did work on the sovereignty mechanic changes that came with the Dominion expansion. This was when the developers really started to use the CSM to help refine their expansion ideas and game designs. On a third-party forum, Seleene discussed the event and how the role of the CSM has become integral to CCPs development process:
"I was there when I watched the initial concept be proposed and saw how the CSM delegates affected the game first hand. There simply is nothing like devs being FORCED to sit in a room and see a big Serb fellow like Vuk Lau literally pounding on the table about sov warfare (was funny as hell), or Diedra Val from EVE Uni giving a passionate argument about new player incentives [...] These people can make a difference so, as others have said, it's pretty important who does and does not get a seat on the internet spaceship council."
With four CSM terms complete, there's no shortage of applicants that have been part of a previous council session. As the CSM's meeting minutes are a matter of public record, council members must perform well to stand a chance of being re-elected in a future term. Many popular CSM members have been re-elected for a second term based on their good performance in their first.
The rules previously only allowed them to stay for two six-month terms, meaning players were unable to support the same public figures every time. This may be part of the reason for the dropping voter turnout, something CCP hopes to tackle in this and future council sessions. With the new rules in place, term limits have been dropped and some of those experienced council members are back for another slice of the action. Below is a list of candidates up for election right now, in no particular order, who have been a member of a previous CSM session.
If you spot any errors in the list or have a useful link to contribute, please leave it in the comments on this page.
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