CSM8 Campaign Season - We Need a Clean Slate

CSM8 needs a clean slate. Fourteen brand new, capable people to take their places on the CSM. To represent the player perspective to CCP Games.

Fortunately, that could be a possibility. Hans Jagerblitzen. Two Step. Alekseyev Karrde. Kelduum Revaan. These people have stated that they will not run for re-election.

Elise Randolph, I'm not entirely sure about. It's been indicated that he's not running, but I've yet to see that in writing. For now, we'll assume that he isn't. (Elise is the only CSM7 member I wouldn't mind on CSM8, but a clean slate is a clean slate.) (It has been confirmed that Elise is not running for re-election.)

Seleene needs to go. (It has been confirmed that Seleene is not running for re-election.) He does work, but not on par with the people named in the second and third paragraphs (excepting Kelduum from that list of course.) It's come to a point where it seems Seleene's only real desire for being on the council is that he craves having that inside scoop, his access to NDA material, misses his time as a developer at CCP. That's hardly a reason to be on the CSM, although it's certainly become the extent of his platform ("I used to work for CCP, who better to understand the culture and working environment. Blah blah blah.") He certainly wasn't Pandemic Legion's choice last year, that was Elise Randolph. Seleene squeaked in on name recognition alone.

(Hell, I think any former CCP employee should be excluded from running for the CSM. Stick that in the White Paper, CSM.)

Then there is Trebor. He really needs to go. He's been nothing but a string of bad ideas from start to finish this year. There have been some hints from him that CSM7 might be his last CSM, yet he's not said anything definitive. I think he may very well run. I also think he's been positioning himself as a highsec/carebear candidate all year, a re-election safety net. There was the voting debacle, in which he trumpeted for a new voting system, one that would limit the power of the nullsec voting blocs (a popular highsec platform.) In the most recent minutes, he argues against non-consensual wardecs, favouring mutual wardecs instead. He throws out the word griefing a number of times, and we all know the sort of buzzword griefing is to the carebear community.

The rest we can mostly ignore. They'll either get in because they have a large group of idiots backing them (Dovinian), or they won't because the voting population realized they were a waste of space on the council (Meissa, Issler, Darius III.) What the Russians will do is a mystery. I suppose UAxDEATH has a chance to get back in, maybe, his alliance is in a shambles, but it is now rebuilding under the CFC banner (though I doubt he'd get any official CFC backing.) As for Greene Lee, Against ALL Authorities hasn't completely disintegrated yet, so he probably has a better shot than UAxDEATH. (Although I have issues with Greene -- people without a strong command of the English language have no business on the CSM. English is the language CCP uses to communicate.)

There are a number of really strong candidates running for CSM8. Mynnna. Malcanis. Ripard Teg. To name three exceptionally well-known and respected candidates. Marc Scaurus is considering a campaign, he has a lot of respect from the community too. It would be cool if Pinky Feldman decided to run on the lowsec ticket. A number of these people will be part of the Iceland Seven.

The CSM needs new blood, and a new perspective. CSM7 has been far too chummy, too apologetic, too sycophantic towards CCP. A lot of that, no doubt, stems from Seleene's leadership, and Seleene's relationship with CCP. Instead of representing the players, we ended up with a bunch of people representing their own self-interest, and explaining away CCP missteps.

I'm not advocating an adversarial relationship between CSM8 and CCP. That's not going to get anyone anywhere. There has to be respect on both sides. But CSM8 has to enter their role, not looking for new pals and chums and Skype buddies, but to do a job. They aren't another marketing arm for CCP. We all want them to represent, to do their best to get shit done, to ensure CCP makes as few mistakes as possible, and to serve as proxies to the playerbase at large. We vote them because we feel they can best represent us.

If CCP Unifex wants to move CCP into new development directions, then we need new CSM members. No more of these three and four term people bogging down the proceedings with old methodologies.