DUST Search - Election process mecanics thoughts. Discussion welcome.

Django Quik wrote:

Klivve Cussler wrote:

This is beginning to sound more like a government than an advisory council. Best to keep it simple, in my view.

I think a good compromise would be for CPM members, once elected, to set up focus groups for areas of the product that need work. These groups could be defined however the CPM member wished, but would likely be a selected group of volunteers who have direct experience with the game mechanic in question. The CPM member would chair and manage the focus group, and then present the results to CCP and the rest of the CPM.

In this way, the burden of setting up these groups falls to the players, instead of CCP, who are fairly busy.

I agree with this.

Also, it does sound like a government and that's because it is like a government - a government is a body of people that represents the population of the country; the CPM is a group of people that represent the population of this game. We need ways to make sure the people who are best at representing us are picked, not the people who are best at making friends.


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Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. Gentlemen's Agreement 145	Posted - 2013.05.30 20:17:00 - [1] - Quote Cassonetto Sovrano wrote: Laurent Cazaderon wrote: WP based requirement to vote Still this solution has a downside as well. As soon as the WP requirement for the first election will be known, active players will raise their alt characters to that level over time, expecting to use those to vote multiple times during the first (if doable) or at least the second election. Thus, the WP requirement would need to be raised year after year to avoid people slowly building up many many alt accounts. It would work as a counter measure but hurt new players willing to invest themselves in the entire community mechanics and CPM election as in a few years the WP requirement would be way too high for them to catch up (especially if it grows every year). I would propose a slight variation; instead of raising the required total WP each year, how about we go by WP earned in the last year? It requires the player to be active, weeds out anybody who just started playing, but doesn't create the long term issues of just raising the cap. +1 this
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. Gentlemen's Agreement 149	Posted - 2013.05.31 19:15:00 - [2] - Quote I think that we're never going to get a verifiable 1 vote per RL person. Even in Eve, the vote is 1 per non-trial account, and some people are running 8 or more accounts. Those people, theoretically, have 8 votes, if I'm not mistaken. I think the goal should be to keep people from spamming votes. While it is possible for people to have 8-10 votes in Eve, it isn't common, and no one has 80, 800, or 8000 votes. Straight voting on PSN accounts allows for spamming huge numbers of votes with little effort. The WP/year requirement does not eliminate multiple votes per person, but it makes it difficult to spam huge numbers of votes. I also think that the purchasable citizenship has some merit, but I don't think it should be AUR only. I think that an Isk option, say 2,000,000 Isk, would provide an equivalent "alt speedbump" to a 5-10 Aur option. The problem with this option, however, is that as soon as player-player isk transfers are enabled, a rich player can enfranchise several other accounts. This problem is similar to playing an alt enough that it has enough WP to vote, but the isk option may not require the same time commitment. Either method, however, should provide enough of a barrier to prevent a player from spamming an election with hundreds of votes.
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. 170	Posted - 2013.06.12 18:20:00 - [3] - Quote Nova, you've got some valid points and have correctly listed the perils of any democratic system. However. The primary advantage of the player councils over the CCP community reps is the fact that they are player-chosen. This gives them a solid mandate to act on behalf of the players, and significantly increases the trust that the player body has in the council as a whole. I think an appointed body, while likely more active, would be no more effective than the existing CCP community reps because they would be exactly that: Community reps. Volunteer reps at that. So, in my opinion, having the council selected by the community is vital. That said, there should be safeguards. As I understand it, CCP already reserves the right to veto a nomination for the CSM, so if a known exploiter, or a player banned for racists comments on the forums, CCP can prevent them from running for council. In addition, there should be a method for removing an inactive or counter-active member of the council from his seat, with a system of rapid by-elections to replace him or her. In the end, I agree that not every member of the councils will pull their weight. Not all of them will seriously consider the workload that they have volunteered for, and some of them will simply be difficult to work with. But the advantages of having a council that gets its mandate from the community rather than CCP outweigh the drawbacks.
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. 171	Posted - 2013.06.12 21:24:00 - [4] - Quote I guess it depends on what you view the role of the CPM is. In my opinion, the CPM has two main roles: 1. provide focused feedback to CCP to ensure that their medium and long-term roadmap is not going to alienate/ragequit a significant portion of the existing community, or at least to inform them that it will (since they can and may go ahead anyway). While being trusted by the community is not a requirement for this role, the council member must be confident that he/she is reflecting the community's view, and not his/her own. 2. provide assurances to the gaming community that CCP is listening and reacting to the views of the community. This is where the community's trust of the CPM plays a large role. If, for example, people were raging about the lack of an Amarr HAV, the CPM would be in a position to see the pre-release version of the vehicle, maybe play-test it, and in addition to providing feedback to CCP on it (which is more item 1), they could then go back to the community and say "The shiny golden death machine is a work of art and kicks ass to boot. It's in QA now, so look for it in the next release if all goes well, or if not, the release after." The difference between the CPM saying this vs someone with CCP in their name, is that the community has learned (correctly) that CCP's responses have an element of PR, and need to be taken with a grain of salt. The CPM are known to be able to say what they want, and that they are not beholden to CCP in any way beyond the NDA, so if they say it kicks ass, then the community will likely believe them. Equally if they say "it's not ready. Trust us, you don't want it yet", the community is more likely to believe a community-chosen group than a CCP-chosen group (See "give us PVE, no matter what state its in" threads). If CCP is choosing the members of the CPM, then the assumption is that they WILL be beholden to CCP in some way.
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. 172	Posted - 2013.06.12 22:33:00 - [5] - Quote Noc Tempre wrote: Nova, your post sums up my thoughts entirely. The entire STRUCTURE of the CPM is flawed, so how the members are selected is almost a moot point IMO. I'm interested in more detail on this. Can you clarify? From my perspective, CPM0 is chosen by CCP, and according to Nova, has a 100% active group and is productive. Nova is happy with the situation as it is at the moment, compared to experiences on the CSM. CPM1+ as it is planned will have elected members, but will otherwise be similar in structure to CPM0. That structure is several (8?, I can't remember) people chosen from the player community who have direct access to the development studio for the purposes of improving the game. In what way do you believe that it is flawed? How would you change it? Now's the time to speak up, since things are in flux.
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. 183	Posted - 2013.06.19 22:35:00 - [6] - Quote This is beginning to sound more like a government than an advisory council. Best to keep it simple, in my view. I think a good compromise would be for CPM members, once elected, to set up focus groups for areas of the product that need work. These groups could be defined however the CPM member wished, but would likely be a selected group of volunteers who have direct experience with the game mechanic in question. The CPM member would chair and manage the focus group, and then present the results to CCP and the rest of the CPM. In this way, the burden of setting up these groups falls to the players, instead of CCP, who are fairly busy.
Klivve Cussler S.e.V.e.N. 185	Posted - 2013.06.20 17:09:00 - [7] - Quote Django Quik wrote: Klivve Cussler wrote: This is beginning to sound more like a government than an advisory council. Best to keep it simple, in my view. I think a good compromise would be for CPM members, once elected, to set up focus groups for areas of the product that need work. These groups could be defined however the CPM member wished, but would likely be a selected group of volunteers who have direct experience with the game mechanic in question. The CPM member would chair and manage the focus group, and then present the results to CCP and the rest of the CPM. In this way, the burden of setting up these groups falls to the players, instead of CCP, who are fairly busy. I agree with this. Also, it does sound like a government and that's because it is like a government - a government is a body of people that represents the population of the country; the CPM is a group of people that represent the population of this game. We need ways to make sure the people who are best at representing us are picked, not the people who are best at making friends. While I agree that the structure is similar, and that it is representative in the same way a government (at least an elected government) is, the CPM has a totally different purpose than that of a government. A government governs the population. The CPM does not govern the players. It would be entertaining to see it try! The CPM is an advisory council - it advises CCP and represents the view of the population to CCP.