OOC Entry 82 - Was it Jagerbombs again?

Just today, on the website bearing his name, his smugness himself - The Mittani - wrote an article about the CSM primaries.

Usually the man manages to make his points well, even if one has to roll eyes and sigh about his staggering level of pretentiousness. Not that I expect anything else from a person who used to play Vampire: The Masquerade but it gets old after a while, and sometimes I would like to read intelligent commentary without all the contrived grandstanding.

This time, however, his article reads like he was having a bit too much to drink (it's the time of the year again).

Someone please tell me how the amount of candidates running for the election are - I quote - "a searing indictment of player confidence in the CSM and a sign of deep voter apathy."

So, if less people run for CSM that means people don't want to vote for them? I have the feeling that mister Gianturco just redefined the laws of cause and effect by turning them on their head after pulling them inside-out.

Call me deluded, but maybe less candidates means that the whole CSM process has matured a bit? The CSM 7 members have repeatedly made it very clear how much work the CSM membership means. More than ever before. Basically you are volunteering for an unpaid internship with CCP where you get to go to Iceland twice in a year if you behave nicely. So, the people who are on board with this must either be really idealistic, completely in denial, or really desperately wanting to see Iceland before they die. Is it a surprise that in the light of that information less people will stand for a CSM candidacy? Is it a sign of "voter apathy" that this number is lower?

Our smirking beekeeper proceeds to dramatically exclaim how "the sheer lack of interest for players in even running for CSM8, compared to past elections, is jaw-dropping.".

Oh the drama!

Personally I would rather call that a refreshing change.

Finally I (or any other voter) will not have to spend two hours digging through candidacy posts by people who will never even make any difference. 35 is actually pretty manageable. That becomes even better if you are a) with a large coalition which means you have no free will anyway and get to vote what your overlords tell you; or b) not with a large coalition, which will mean that you certainly wont vote for anyone who has CFHBC written all over their candidacy.

In my case, I can look at the candidate's list and immediately scratch half of the candidates. Interestingly enough only half of them. Contrary to the statement of the Lord of the Bees it's not "a sign that non-bloc candidates aren't bothering to run anymore." There is just less spam.

If the man would have put a bit more consideration into his piece, he might have reflected on the fact that 14% of the candidates are from a community that allegedly comprises only 5% of the players. (By that I mean WH Space). Compared to the playerbase they are actually just as much represented as all of nullsec. If you consider only the bloc candidates for nullsec, then WH-Space candidates are rather over-representing their constituency. Actually that makes this election rather difficult for me personally.

The self proclaimed Solar Spymaster might have noted how the only female candidate is from an independent nullsec community. Another thing that makes me think long and hard about where to cast my vote. Because of some probably ill conceived feeling of sisterhood, I like to see some female minds on the job, but I sure as hell couldn't vote for a nerdraging carebear harridan like Issler Dainze (who also ended up contributing nothing at all to CSM7 according to the more active members). I definitely voted for Mynxee despite the fact that I was a newbie, more likely to be shot to pieces by her than anything else, back when she was running.

No, Mr. Queen-Bee, this is not an election which causes apathy.

I dare to wager here and now that this election will see the highest participation yet.* After all, there are some really decent candidates from the independent factions. Mike Azariah, Ripard Teg, Roc Wieler, Ali Aras and Psychotic Monk look like serious contenders, and with one thing you have hit the nail on the head: "with so few candidates almost everyone with a vague amount of support could get one of the 14 seats."

That means of course, that it wont be a CSM safely in the hands of the nullsec hives with their single-minded approach to the game, and therefore more interesting than ever.

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* If I win, you disband Goonswarm. If you win, I'll become a paying member of Something Awful. Deal?