I’d like to encourage everyone to participate in this, Eve’s first attempt at a democratic process. I will thank my supporters in advance and point out that you can vote for me at http://myeve.eve-online.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=73

The following is a brief overview I had posted on our forums explaining to goons at a high level what the CSM is and what its stated purpose will be. Please feel free to let me know if there’s anything here that appears to be inaccurate and I’ll be happy to make a correction.

Based on some of the questions and answers I’ve been seeing I’m not quite certain either all of the people asking or all of the people answering really know what the CSM is, how it will be structured and what it’s purpose is. Here is a little brief I’ll call CSM for Goons.

The CSM is a group of 9 players which will be voted into office via a one vote per account rule. The highest voted player will be granted the chairmanship and will for all intents and purposes “run” the CSM. If elections do not succeed properly the chairman also chooses by hand who will fill the other 2 or 3 seats that are named officers on the council.

Essentially these 9 people hold meetings where they bring up and discuss player concerns, with the end result being that twice a year they get to bring these concerns directly to CCP, and have CCP either commit to fixing them or at least give an answer regarding why.

The CSM is flown to Iceland every 6 months. No one may sit on the CSM for more than 2 terms. Communication to CSM members will be done via whatever mechanisms they choose as well as a forum which will be set up on eve-o. Anyone will be able to post on this forum with issues they feel the CSM should address and have an open ended discussion.

The CSM only gets their two opportunities each year to bring issues to CCP. That means that the issues need to be well thought out and the pile must be carefully selected.

All votes in the CSM that have thus far been conceived only require a 51% margin to pass. People can be removed from the CSM for breaking the EULA.

That’s about it off of the top of my head. Feel free to ask questions about the CSM in general and I’ll try to answer them.