The march to the EVE Online Council of Stellar Management 21 election continues.

Council of Stellar Management 21

CCP/Fenris announced earlier this week the list of candidates that had managed to clear the extremely low bar to get on the ballot.  I mean, it isn’t as easy as getting on the ballot to run for governor of the State of California.  We had 61 people on the primary ballot for that office, some of whom I am sure CCP/Fenris wouldn’t let serve on the CSM.

I went through the qualifications in a previous post.  If you are interested it is linked at the end of this post.

The CSM election cycle has four stage… or five, really, if you count announcing the winners, but the company didn’t put that date on the list!

  • Candidate submissions: 17 September – 2 October
  • Candidate announcement: 6 October
  • Campaign period: 6 October – 21 October
  • Voting period: 22 October – 3 November

Having just had the candidate announcement, we are now in the campaign period.  Most players will completely ignore the whole thing, as voter turnout indicates every year.  Of those who do pay attention, most probably know who, or at least what, they are voting for.

For the remaining few I have taken the company’s candidate list, linked each candidate to their campaign forum post (I don’t know why CCP/Fenris can’t put in that much effort, the short blurbs they included are useless), and then added a column titled “Bias,” which could be their bias, or could be mine.  Or maybe it is just an attempt at humor?  Could be all of the above!

For most candidates bias is simply the section of the game from which they come.  Easy peasey.

I did add additional text for some candidates.  If they represent a non-bloc null sec group (i.e. not Imperium, WinterCo, or The Initiative), I have noted that.  Also, having read all the damn forum posts… ugh… I did add the occasional area of expertise or focus if the case for it was well made.

Simply saying you represent something… or everything… doesn’t mean anything.

So, for example, Kenneth Feld has “industry” in addition to “null sec” because he has demonstrated a focus on that in the past.  He was totally on board with making capital ships too expensive to undock back in 2021, so this isn’t an endorsement of him being smart on the topic, merely that he is focused on it.

Some of the entries are editorial.  Ceema, for example, has built his fame with Reddit troll posts.  If you haven’t been fooled by Ceema at least once… you’re a liar or you don’t read r/eve.  Others are what the individuals have shown us they are about.

In another example, if your campaign thread brags about the waste of dev time that was the Ansiblex nerf, being anti-null sec is your revealed preference.  That seems a pretty reasonable statement of fact, and a useful data point.  There is an anti-null sec demographic out there looking for you I am sure.

Finally, if your platform is to be all about EVE Vanguard… and I know CCP/Fenris wants to push that particular agenda item… I personally think you should fuck right off and hope you are eliminated in the first round.  But that’s just my opinion.

Anyway, here is the list of the candidates currently slated for the ballot come election time.  There is a non-zero chance somebody will fall off the ballot between now and then.

Candidate Corporation Alliance Bias 0BAKEE x13 Train Wreck. Low Sec Adhamhnon Iron Whales Goonswarm Federation Null Sec Amiomia The Exotic Dancers Heirs To The Pleasurehub Null Sec / Non-bloc Angela Chent-Shi Vapor Lock. Vapor-Lock Low Sec Ankh Lai Running with Dogs Weapons Of Mass Production. Null Sec / Non-bloc Arhont Sibirskii Deadly Dozen Mans Can i bring my Drake… Wormholes Arrowspeeed Bounty Elysian Technologies Enclave Fraternity. Null Sec Bluedagger New Jovian Exploration Department New Jovian Collective Wormholes Ceema KarmaFleet Goonswarm Federation Null Sec / Trolling Reddit CruelCodex Owasso Therapy. Northern Coalition. Null Sec Culaure FRAC Holding Inc. Frog Assault Command Low Sec DCTDN Chaos arbiter Fraternity. Null Sec / Faction Warfare Drake Iddon CastleKickers Rote Kapelle Anti-Null Sec Dujek Oneye Brave Newbies Inc. Brave Collective Null Sec DutchGunner Circle of Abyss Wicked Angels. High Sec Frozen Fallout Federation Front Line Report Out of the Blue. Low Sec HuntBuzz 4S Corporation The Initiative. Null Sec / AI Slop hyprviper1 KarmaFleet Goonswarm Federation Null Sec Itaer Neurotoxin Control IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Anti-Null Sec itsFluffy000 Voidlings V0IDLINGS Wormholes Jay Cee Ormand STeMCO – Small Trade Mining Co. Cat Scratch Fevers High Sec / Demographic Doomer Jennifer Corring Task Force 641 Empyrean Edict Low Sec Joilove Sunrunner The Graduates The Initiative. Null Sec Kenneth Feld Habitual Euthanasia Pandemic Legion Null Sec / Industry Kshal Aideron F.U.N. Inc. The Ancients. High Sec Limited Liability The New Eden School of trade Organization of Skill Extracting Corporations Economics Machiavelian Blackwater USA Inc. Deepwater Hooligans Null Sec Mercilessguard Ascendance Goonswarm Federation Null Sec / Industry Mike Azariah The Scope N/A High Sec / New Players MILINT ARC Trooper Pator Tech School N/A Running For CSM Misty Dawn253 Cozy Mischief Sedition. Low Sec Nordpol The Extinguisher Cherry Defence Shipyards The Initiative. Null Sec Nova Terra-Ren Physics Says No Psyno Theory Wormholes Nyx 0 Small Industries Services The Initiative. Null Sec / Bad Economic Ideas Orion Sa-Solo Minmatar Fleet Academy Minmatar Fleet Alliance Low Sec Pandoralica DEFCON. The Initiative. Null Sec / Visionary Poiuyt20 Fliba No Vacancies No Vacancies. Wormholes Rathon Altol Storm Chasers. Test Alliance Please Ignore Null Sec Reagalan GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation Null Sec Sawdeth Ternius Planetary Response Organisation Holding N/A EVE Vanguard Schadsquatch Twelve Identical Suspicious Mustaches The Initiative. Null Sec / Wormholes Sean Vanstroll Inevitable Outcome E.C.H.O Wormholes sennett Infinite Point The Initiative. Null Sec Seraph Essael Air The Initiative. Null Sec Shivon SaltWorks Mining CO N/A Low Sec SkyMikerJedi Reeloaded Reeloaded. Null Sec / Non-bloc Sopleb KarmaFleet Goonswarm Federation Null Sec Styxx Dark Shado D.A.R.K. Solo Everything? Switch 4 Heretic Army Sedition. Low Sec tagknife Fusion Enterprises Ltd Test Alliance Please Ignore Null Sec Taran Lazarus Asteroid Farm Unlimited Goonswarm Federation Null Sec Tikka Absolute Order Absolute Honor High Sec xXNemXx Star Frontiers Brotherhood of Spacers Null Sec / Non-bloc Zintage Enaka Echelon Research Goonswarm Federation Null Sec

There will be interviews through CCP and some other streamers that will try to get more information from the candidates, but that will mostly fail.  The only likely outcome of interest will be somebody making a completely disqualifying statement, like saying they wouldn’t mine cash shop items like “gold ammo,” something that sank a past candidate for office.

I will vote in my own self-interest, and I expect you will as well.  My only advice is to be wary of those who are promising to make the company do anything… that is not how this works… and anybody from one part of the game who seems obsessed with “fixing” another part of the game they don’t really play in.

From that list of 54 candidates, 10 will be elected to the CSM, while 2 candidates from the group that finishes in positions eleven to twenty will be picked by CCP/Fenris to fill the final two seats, giving us a full council of 12 representatives.

In practice, seven or eight of the elected seats will go to candidates from the null sec blocs, with the other elected seats being wild cards.  Sometimes wormholers or low sec will actually get on the same page and elect somebody.

CCP/Fenris will then ignore the null sec candidates, Rattati’s past publicly stated opinion being that at least Goons are to be ignored.  (We call it the “That’s just Goons” doctrine from the company.)

Their picks from the top ten runners up will be the two candidates that seem most likely to reinforce the established biases of Rattati and Okami and their voices will be the ones actually heard by the company… as long as they are agree with what the company was going to do anyway.

As I said back when the elected council idea was announced, and have repeated ever since, the CSM is basically the New Eden student council, lacking any power or agency within the system the company has created.  Having players elect a focus group is a questionable practice… though since most companies will build focus groups to reflect their own bias, the CSM at least it dodges that problem ever so slightly.

The most one can expect out of the body is maybe talking CCP/Fenris out of their worst ideas (roll file footage of the CSM announcing that some bad idea was never brought to them and they only learned about it when it was added to the game) and maybe finally getting some decade old bug or annoyance finally addressed because the EVE Online team often shows a lack of actual interest in the details of their game.  That is not without value.  But don’t get your hopes up that the CSM will change the course of the game.

So cast your vote wisely… or poorly… or not at all.  I am not sure it matters all that much.

But if it makes you feel good, go ahead and do what you were going to do anyway!

Related:

  • CCP/Fenris – CSM21 Dev Blog
  • CCP/Fenris – CSM 21 Candidate Announcements
  • CCP/Fenris – The Roles and Duties of a member of the Council of Stellar Management
  • TAGN – EVE Online and the Road to CSM 21