The Road to CSM13

Back in early February we learned that one of the outcomes of the Winter summit was a list of changes to the CSM election process.  In summary:

• Move the CSM elections to a point later in the year
• Increase the amount of time for campaigns
• Reduce the actual time spent voting
• Announce the results sooner

The reasoning behind them is covered in the link above.  Now CCP has followed up to fill in some of the details as to how this will play out.

Coming to a space election near you…

The plan so far:

• Applications are open – March 19 to 23
• Application processing – March 23 to April 11
• Candidates for CSM 13 are announced – FANFEST (April 12-14)
• Voting will take place late April/May – Dates will be announced later in a separate blog
• Spring/Summer – CSM 13 onboarding & orientation
• CSM 13 Summit 1 – September (likely dates are Sept 3-6)
• CSM 13 Summit 2 – February

I am going to say, up front, that the application period seems pretty short.  I am not sure that was part of the original plan, or something new to cut down on the number of candidates, but last year the application period ran for two weeks, February 3 to 17.  14 days to 4 days is more than a bit of a cut.

It seems like the second step, processing all those crazy applications, could be trimmed back a bit to allow more time for applications, since that only took two weeks last time around.  Or they could just start accepting them earlier.

I actually went and asked about this on the forum thread setup to discuss this.  Of course, I showed up to as a question about the process only to find a thread mired knee deep in the usual debates about the CSM and CCP and how things should be.  Welcome to EVE Online.

I was wondering if, as with the voting aspect of the process, they might have some insider insight.  Maybe almost everybody who runs applies on the first day anyway, so the two week window wasn’t really helping anybody.

Surprisingly, to me at least because my expectations, as set by the industry as a whole, are to never expect to hear anything ever about any comment or question, CCP Guard responded and said that the window for applications wasn’t felt to be as important as the actual notice and run up time to get things in order.

Then I pointed out that last year, from announcement to the final day of applications, players had 40 days while this year it was only 24 days, and that was all I heard about that as the thread continued to be people complaining about various aspects of the CSM, like the NDA requirement.

Anyway, beyond that we’re back on track again, with the candidates being announced at Fanfest.

After that things get a bit vague.  The plan was to have a longer campaign season followed by a shorter span for actual voting.  Again looking at last year, the time between candidates being announced and when voting began was about a week, after which voting ran on for three weeks.

If they reverse that ratio April seems unlikely as far as the start of voting.  I would guess that, allowing for a 3 to 4 week campaigning period to get us all completely bored with space politics, we might be looking at the election starting on May 6 or May 13.

And after that we’ll get some election results, presumably much more quickly than last year, and then the newly elected CSM13 can start in on all of their CSM-y things while people complain about the results and null sec winning too many seats.

Anyway, if you want to run have your passport handy and meet the following criteria:

• Your account must be older than 60 days at the time candidacy applications close.
• Characters on both Alpha and Omega accounts are eligible to run.
• You must have a history of honoring the EULA and the Terms of Service. We will screen every applicant thoroughly and EULA/TOS violations on your record can result in a rejected application.
• Your account must have updated and correct information at the time of your application. This includes; your real life name, correct date of birth and the same email you use to submit your application. To view and edit this information go to the account management website.
• Candidates must have reached 18 years of age. If the legal adult age in your home country (the age at which you have the legal capacity to enter into a contract) is higher than 18, that number applies instead.
• As an applicant, you must consent to provide your personal details to CCP, including your real name and a copy of your passport. CCP needs to affirm your real life identity for NDA contract purposes and the ability to travel to summits in Iceland is a key function of the CSM.
• If you do not currently have a valid passport, we will accept a picture/scan of a valid and approved passport application accompanied with a picture of your driver‘s license.
• You must consent to sharing your country of origin with the EVE Community and having it displayed on the EVE Online website. You will not be required to share any other personal information with the EVE community.
• If you are running as an “alt” and you control a character that has a reputation in the EVE universe, CCP may require you to run under that identity at its full discretion.

Then follow directions on the dev blog to apply to be a candidate.