[OOC] Democracy in Space: The CSM7 Elections and Results

So EVE is unique in a lot of ways, but none are more easily identifiable than the CSM.  The CSM, which stands for the Council of Stellar Management, has been around for seven years now, and to quote the CSM white paper :

"The purpose of the CSM is to represent society interests to CCP. This requires active engagement with the player community to master EVE issue awareness, understanding, and evaluation in the context of the greatest good for the greater player base."


What this boils down to is a fourteen person council made up of players elected by other players to represent them.  While democracy is awesome and everything, there is a singular problem within EVE regarding the CSM; Alliances form the base powerbloc of the candidates, and as evidenced by returning CSM Chairman The Mittani (or Mittens, to you Goonsquad d-bags...), they only care about nullsec.  As representatives of the EVE playerbase, alliance powerblocs are vastly undemocratic, as they simply force the entire alliance to vote for their candidate, so that The Mittani can amass over 10k votes, with the closest opponent being Two-Step @ just above 4k votes.

Alliances are cool, despite the blob.  That being said, they are not the entirety of EVE, and for the Chairman to again be The Mittani signals that the Alliance blocs will continue to get their voices heard, while those of us in Empire space (or even lowsec) are stuck with whoever yells the loudest.  I voted for Kelduum Revaan, CEO of EVE University (the only charitable corp in EVE, and also the best for new players to learn from), and while I knew he wouldn't win the chairmanship, I am very happy to see him on the CSM itself, as EVE Uni has done amazing things for the entire playerbase, almost since the very beginning of EVE, back in 2003.  That being said, most of the CSM are from alliance blocs like NCDOT, Goonswarm, and PL.  So expect more of the same arrogance and douchebaggery, with a small amount of legitimate concerns and ideas.

The results for CSM7 can be found HERE, by CCP Diagoras