CSM 7 Final Report Card

I debated writing this post at all. I'm only a casual Council of Stellar Management observer and I wondered if trying to write an evaluation of CSM 7 from that perspective was fair. But then I thought that I'm part of an audience that needs to let current and future CSM members know where they are weak and need work, and where they need to continue doing what they are doing. So here we are.

I'm going to evaluate the CSM both as a whole and members individually in this post, and at the end wrap it up with a grade.

Member Participation

As far as I can remember, this has been one of the most polarized CSMs in terms of member participation. It felt like 90% of the work was done by 1/3 of the CSM, the other 10% by another 1/3, and the last third did nothing or actively worked against the rest. Alekseyeve Karrde, Hans Jagerblitzen, Two Step, and Trebor Daehdoow were visibly active the most for the whole year, while Seelene and Elise Randolph and Kelduum Revaan popped up here and there. I didn't even remember UAxDeath was on CSM 7 until I looked up the list to make sure I spelled names correctly, and Darius III I knew was on there but he can be considered a rogue agent for all intents and purposes.

I acknowledge that some members may have been more active in other non-english communities thus not as visible, but my impression is that is not the case here.

I'm going to say that I think making Seelene the chair of CSM 7 was a mistake. I understand that they had their reasons for voting the way they did but Seelene's participation in CSM 6 was not good enough to justify the chair and as CSM 7 went on we saw the same problem with him going off the radar. Yes, the CSM should not be allowed to replace real life as a second job but there is a many levels between fully engaged and fully disengaged and yet Seelene seems not able to find them. I think some of the problems with member participation could have been addressed by a stronger-willed, more diplomatic and more consistently present chair.

Activity

So what did the CSM 7 do for the year? To be fair to them they entered office at a weird time. CCP was getting over the mad panic rush to right the ship with Crucible and Inferno and did not pay enough attention to the CSM for the first half of their term. The CSM called CCP on the lack of proper interaction and steps were made to rectify that and the second half of their term was a lot more productive.

The minutes produced from the summits were extremely detailed (perhaps overdetailed?) and provided some much needed accountability by identifying who said what. I approve. But again we run up into the situation where the lion's share of the work is seemingly being done by the minority of the members. I disapprove.

I was very happy with the CSM when they produced the strategy document which laid out a clear vision of strategic planning recommendations for CCP. I think it was brilliant and should be held up of an example of good CSM-CPP communication and influence.

I believe that CSM 7's greatest contribution to the institution will be the improved stakeholder status and getting the CSM more involved with one team on a constant basis. I hope CSM 8 continues that trend going forward.

Communication

While I'm not as critical of CSM 7's communication as others like Ripard Teg have been, I do think it could have been better. CSM members that ran blogs went horribly silent for the most part, in particular two important members, Seelene and Trebor.

Here's Seelene's posts over his term:

And Trebor's:

Yes, it is better than nothing, but it leaves a lot of dead air in between those seasonal status updates where a lot of casual people can forget the CSM even exists. I don't think any of the other members have blogs.

There were a fair number of podcast appearances and I will give credit to CSM 7 for being active in the podcast circuit. Well, some of them, the usual ones. And Alekseyev runs his own excellent podcast called Declarations of War in which he had a frequent CSM section, but for the casual eve player these avenues are ineffective and a very different audience from the forum and blog readers.

Also, I was disturbed by how much air time on these podcast appearance were taken up by responding to criticism, real or imagined. Ripard Teg's posts in particular seemed to drive the CSM batty, especially Seelene and Alekseyev who at times displayed incredibly thin skin for public figures and went very aggressively after Ripard on podcasts until the whole thing jumped the shark when Aleks allowed co-host Ninja Turtle to deliver what I can only hope was a tirade fueled by accidently mixing alcohol and medications, since it was so over the top and outright demonstratively false. To their credit, Ninja Turtle and Aleks publicly apologized on the podcast when called on it and gave Ripard a chance to come on and speak for himself.

Overall

In the end, I give half the CSM 7 a passing grade and the other half a failing one. For the chair Seelene, I thought he would have been better suited to just being a member and not being the chair. I think they did OK on communicating with the playerbase but could have done better, but there communication with CCP was good to excellent and their work on planning and summits and the minutes were outstanding.

I think that the fault for the lower CSM 8 election turnout has to fall equally on CSM 7 and CCP's shoulders., and I'm hoping that CSM 8 takes improving community outreach as one of their common goals this year.

CSM7, We Have A Problem

I'm calling you out CSM7. You have let me down. You have let the entire playerbase down.

Your failure is being cataloged as one of the worst in all of CSM history. How you could stand by and let this travesty stand without a word in protest is explainable. And Unacceptable. You should all resign RIGHT NOW.

What am I talking about? WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT!? YOU FOOLS!

I'm talking about this!

And THIS!

You get it now, CSM7!

What do you mean "what's wrong with them"? NOTHING is wrong with the new Stabber and Vagabond models. They are beautiful updates on a an old hull. Incredible kudos to the art department for their work, I can't wait to sit in them.

The problem is, you obtuse representatives, is this:

AND THIS TRAVESTY:

How could you let them update the Stabber, which was not all that bad to begin with, honestly, and yet not insist, nay DEMAND, an update to the ship that causes more damage to the enemy through its looks alone than its weapon systems!?

THIS SHALL NOT STAND CSM7. I'LL HAVE YOUR JOBS FOR THIS FAILURE.1

1 - I have no authority to take your jobs. 

Return of the Kodachi - This and That

My hell week(s) are over and blogging can resume! This is the first of two posts today, the second being the long promised but postponed Fiction Friday Actually I've been asked for significant changes to my EON article I submitted yesterday so fiction friday will have to wait one more week.

In this post, I'm going to touch on several things to get them out of my head.

* * * * *

Titan Tracking - during one of the podcasts Alekseyev Karde said that he was OK with the current Titan tracking mechanics stating that a Titan fit to be able to track many sub-capital vessels had a compromised tank and was thus a "glass cannon". I disagree with this position because I feel that a glass cannon should be something easily destroyed if caught (like a Caracal or a Gank Brutix) and that a base Titan is still pretty safe in waiting for backup from all but other serious cap fleets (at which they are in trouble anyways, tanked or not).

However, I want to actually look at the numbers involved and see if my gut is wrong on this one, so expect a post next week looking at Glass Cannon titans and how much they are glass as opposed to transparent aluminum.

* * * * *

One week in Red versus Blue with my alt Korneilia and in two short sessions of game time she has 7 killmails and one loss. Colour me impressed. I'll have more to say about Red v. Blue next week but in the meantime, if you are looking for quick PvP then putting an alt into the fight is a good idea.


* * * * *

CSM elections are going on and one thing to come out of the podcast listening I've been able to do has been the question of who was more responsible for the success of Crucible, the CSM6 members or the unsubscribing and rioting players.

I'm a little ticked with this question as it treats CPP as a monolithic ignorant block, and in truth I suspect that Crucible was part CSM, part unsubscribing players, and part passionate devs pushing at their managers for a reality check. Somebody(s) somewhere in CCP was taking all of the CSM input and player rage and numbers and waving in front of management's face, and when Hilmar finally relented on the Incarna "march of doom" and asked for "what instead?", I think that CSM got traction for the backlog because of these unknown dev crusaders.

I could be wrong, but its worth remembering that CPP is not necessarily a group-think hivemind.

* * * * *

Starting played World of Tanks again after a month and a half away from the game. Enjoying myself again and finally got to upgrade to the King Tiger, aka Tiger II tier 8 heavy tank. Still have the stock gun with is the long 88 of the Tiger so its a little underpowered for big tier 8 counterparts, but the superior armour thickness and angles has me noticing a lot more bounces such that the tank feels a lot more durable despite only have 150 more hitpoints (1350 compared to 1500).

Voting Open

I've cast my votes in favour of Alekseyev Karrde, here is a link to do the same.