The Road to CSM15 includes Term Limits

CCP got around to dropping the promised dev blog about the elections for the EVE Online player advisory body, the Council of Stellar Management.

The next round is coming

The basic timeline for the CSM15 elections is:

• 27 April-11 May – Submission period
• 28 April-15 May – Application processing
• 18 May – Candidate announcement
• 18-29 May – Campaign period
• 1-8 June – Voting period
• 12 June – CSM 15 reveal

While the dev blog says that is a timeline that has worked in the past, it does seem a little bit shorter than last year’s CSM14 schedule, by about a week.  I wouldn’t even have deigned to pick that nit save for the fact that the dev blog specifically mentioned that they had used this schedule before.  Either way, the voting period remains one week long, a change that was made for the CSM13 elections because CCP noticed that most people vote on the first or last day of the election, with very little activity in between.

As has been the case for the last few CSM elections, there are some changes being introduced.

Term Limits

CCP says that being on the CSM is a tough job.  It is certainly takes more effort than I would want to put into it. So because of that CSM members will be limited to three consecutive one year terms, after which they will need to go away for a year.

After a one year hiatus, during which they can actually play the game, or so the dev blog seems to imply, they can run again.

This is also not fully retroactive.  Term limits will count only CSM14 for this new rule, so anybody on that slate can run and be elected twice more before they need take a break. (Though, of incumbents, Dunk Dinkle and Steve Ronuken have already declared they are not running for CSM15.)

Of course, anybody can come back after their one year hiatus for another three terms.  I suspect that this term limit regimen will be just enough to annoy both those who don’t want term limits while being far too weak to please those who are in favor of them.  Does that make it a successful compromise?  Or is this just weak tea that probably wasn’t worth the effort?

Campaign Forum Post Requirements

CCP also wants to formalize the campaign forum post process for candidates, giving them a series of topics they will be required to touch on in order to make sure that voters know something about them.  So the format will be:

• Your EVE Online story
• Your areas of expertise
• Why are you applying for the CSM?
• What can players expect from you?

Candidates can add more to their post if they so desire, but Ayrth won’t be able to get by with a post saying he doesn’t need any filthy pubbie vote in order to get elected. (I’ll be interested to see where he falls in the gap between the spirit and the letter of this rule when he does post.)

Whether this will make a lick of difference in the election overall remains to be seen.  Player apathy seems like the biggest issue facing the elections.  There has been a lot of information out there about serious candidates almost every year if people have put even a little bit of effort in finding it.  Having some of that in the forums in a standard format isn’t a bad idea, but it runs on the assumption that any but a select few keep an eye on the forums on a regular basis. I know I don’t, and I consider myself more informed than average about the game.

Anyway, keep an eye on the CSM Candidate section of the forums if you are interested in this.

Single Five Day Summit

CCP will only being flying your ass to Iceland once per term now.  There might be a bit of a relief all around because, while there is no substitute for in person meetings at times, summits do take a toll on the participants.  The CSM members have to take a week out of their lives to travel to and from Iceland, while CCP has to prepare to host them and keep them busy while they are on site.  One summit will make that less taxing, which seems to be CCP’s goal.  Still, CSM members will now just have one opportunity per year to have some in person time with CCP to influence things.

CSM Roles and Expectations

The dev blog says that the CCP has updated the CSM information page, though it declined to mention what might have changed.  The Code of Conduct was mentioned.  If you are considering running you should probably go through that just to make sure you can live with the expectations.

Apply Now

Or on Monday I guess.  If you want to run for a seat on the CSM you can start applying on Monday, as the schedule above indicates.  There is a specific list of requirements to run for the CSM, but I’ll sum it up:

• Have an EVE Online account, alpha or omega, that is older than 60 days
• Have a clean record, so no history of EULA/TOS violations
• Be 18 years old
• Have a passport or some other acceptable ID
• Be willing to tell the community the country you live in

And so it goes.  We’re off to the races again.  We shall see if everybody having to stay home and play video games will improve voter turnout… or even voter awareness.  I wouldn’t bet against CSM15 ending up with the say dynamic as CSM14, with eight null sec members, one wormhole, and one outlier.

Anyway, if you are interested, go read the dev blog and follow the instructions.