Fourteen in a Bed

In compiling these recommendations, I am not giving any weight to how the candidates play EVE, how much they agree or disagree with me, and whether or not they are also supporting me. My major criteria is "do I think this person will do a good job if they are elected?" I expect that all of these candidates will be hard-working team players who will strongly but fairly advocate for the entire community.

None of my recommendations are bloc candidates. This is not because there aren't excellent bloc candidates this year, it's simply that their blocs will ensure they get elected, and supporting them isn't tactically wise under STV. I want a diverse CSM that represents all areas of the game.

My recommended ballot for CSM8 (Version 1.0)

1. Trebor Daehdoow. My polling indicates that 35% of my voters are voting for me because I'm experienced, 31% because I work hard and get results, 18% because they are old and/or bald like me, and 16% because they want to annoy Poetic Stanziel.

2. Tie: Ripard Teg is knowledgeable, hard-working, and a great writer, while Malcanis is probably the all-time champion goodposter on EVE-O -- he's been around forever and nobody has a bad word to say about him.

4. corebloodbrothers impressed me when he ran for the first time last year, but the voting system conspired against him. With any luck, the change to STV will mean the second time will be the charm.

5. Tie: Nathan Jameson and James Arget would be great voices for Wormhole residents. If the stars align, both of them will be.

7. I have served on CSM with both the major Russian candidates, and I like both of them personally, which makes choosing between them painful. However, I think Korvin is the better choice given the challenges and opportunities that CSM 8 will face.

8. Ali Aras is a rare bird, the experienced newbie. I want CCP to put more resources into making EVE more newbie-friendly, and her voice will help convince them to do that.

9. Mangala Solaris brings yet another important perspective to the table, and is well-respected in his community.

10. Given how much crap I've taken from his supporters, you may be surprised to learn that Psychotic Monk is going to be on my ballot. I disagree with some of his positions, but he argues them fairly -- and anything we do agree on is likely to be correct. I am hoping he will be CSM 8's Alekseyev Karrde.

11. Unforgiven Storm is a good industrialist candidate who has the bad luck to be a Goon who is running as an independent. That means he probably won't get much love from bloc voters, and a lot of other people won't vote for him because he's a Goon. If he doesn't make it, I hope he does well enough to try again next year. If so, he could be the corebloodbrothers of CSM 9.

12. Roc Wieler will either be a decent CSM, or he'll be able to role-play a decent CSM. Either works for me.

13. Mike Azariah wants to represent the casual player, and has shown he can work hard on community-related projects.

14. To Be Determined. I am really undecided about who to put in my final slot, and I want to sleep on it. Think you know who it should be? If so, post in my EVE-O thread and tell me why. Or perhaps another candidate will make me an offer I can't refuse.

After all, as we all know, politics makes strange bedfellows.

Lack of Quantity has a Quality all its own

Oh frabjous day, Mittens has launched another salvo in his attempt to depress non-bloc turnout in the CSM election (aka the "War Against Turnout").

This time he's taking the fact that there are only 35 candidates and trying to spin it into an alleged crisis of confidence in the community. Go read it and play "count the logical fallacy".

The most important one is, of course: Quantity does not imply Quality. A much more reasonable explanation for the reduced number of candidates is simply this: CSM7 and CCP have made it abundantly clear that CSM is :srsbsns: that requires a significant time investment, and the rules of the CSM and the election system were updated to encourage serious candidates to run.

If you look at the 35 candidates running for CSM this year, there are significantly more high-quality candidates than in any previous CSM election. Ask yourself, why did guys like Malcanis and Ripard Teg run this year and not last year?

Better yet, go ask them in their campaign threads. Then pop by my thread and give me a bump, and check out the threads of other serious first-time candidates like Nathan Jameson, James Arget, Mangala Solaris, Psychotic Monk, and corebloodbrothers, just to name a few non-bloc guys who are likely to get  on my recommended ballot (more on that soon).

PS: I confidently predict that every serious CSM candidate will pass the threshold within the first couple of days.

2013: A CSM Odyssey

CCP has just teased the contents of the next expansion, Odyssey, so finally CSM members can start discussing some of the details -- but only some of them, since we can't discuss details that have not already been made public due to the NDA.

So this first post on Odyssey will focus on how much of the CSM's agenda got reflected in the final result. If you've read my previous posts (here and here) on CSM's involvement in the release planning process, you already know that CSM got an unprecedented opportunity to provide input to the process.

A quick recap: First, all of the various teams at CCP made presentations about things they could contribute to the expansion. Then the teams (and CSM) took all these ingredients and developed recipes for themed expansions. The final theme was a synthesis of the best ideas, tempered by the realities of the development process.

After these presentations, CSM ranked the various ingredients based on how important we thought they were, and how much bang-for-the-buck we thought they provided.

Of the 5 items we ranked 10/10, 3 are addressed in Odyssey. Of the 12 items we ranked 9.0-9.9, at least 6 made it. Of the 8 items we ranked 8.0-8.9, 4 made it. Of the 4 items we ranked 7.0-7.9, 2 made it.

We also labeled 17 features as "big ticket" items. At least 9 of them are in Odyssey.

Finally, we identified 6 "core crucial" elements that most of the recipes incorporated. 4 of them made it into Odyssey in some form.

Odyssey is significantly more aggressive than the last couple of expansions, which IMHO is the right direction. The task of the CSM over the next few months, as a stakeholder for a team working on some of the headline features, is to do everything we can to make the expansion as successful as possible, because I want CCP to take even larger bites from the apple in the future.

PS: CSM Pre-Elections have started. You can endorse me here.

Table Pounding: An Early Analysis

The Mittani published an interesting article today, entitled "THE CSM8 ELECTION: AN EARLY ANALYSIS".

It's a wonderful example of Mittens trying to shape the narrative, and he deploys a variety of rhetorical tactics in support of this goal. So I thought it would be enlightening to deconstruct it a bit, and show it for it probably is: the first salvo in a campaign to depress non-bloc turnout.

Mittens begins with some "realtalk". As anyone who knows him well will tell you, this is code for "propaganda". For example, he implies that because I'm the only incumbent running for re-election (which is not quite correct; I am the only incumbent who has declared that they are running), CSM7 has been a failure, and the CSM/CCP relationship has deteriorated.

Neither are true: the real reason the active members of CSM7 aren't running again is that their personal and professional circumstances make it impossible for them to put in the hours that they know CSM8 will demand. One consequence of CSM7's hugely successful push to get earlier and more detailed access to CCP's planning and production processes is that being an active member of CSM8 will require 10-20 hours a week of work, plus burning 2 weeks of vacation time (ie: all of it, if you're an American) to attend summits. Heck, I'm semi-retired and I thought hard about it.

The argument that things are "toxic" (either internally or between CSM and CCP) is highly amusing. CSM7 has significantly more influence with CCP than any previous CSM, and when CCP announces what's going to be in the Summer expansion at PAX East, I think people are going to be pretty happy with what we managed to do -- and the "lame ducks" of CSM7 will keep on working as a CCP stakeholder (working directly with one of the development teams) until the day they leave office.

Props to CCP Dolan for doing a huge amount of organizational work to ensure that all of this activity is smoothly coordinated, by the way.

Mittens next turns to the issue of the Single Transferrable Vote. He first claims it is a huge win for nullsec blocs, and that he would have been able to dictate 4 CSM slots if it had been used in the previous election. He is mistaken: under STV, his vote total (assuming perfect ballot coordination) would have enabled him to elect two candidates and heavily influence a third. He got about 20% of the vote, and would have gotten about 20% of the seats.

What he fails to mention is this: under the old system, only highly organized blocs could coordinate well enough to efficiently split their votes and optimize their voting, but under STV, everyone automatically has that ability, simply by voting for the candidates of their choice. And he also fails to mention that the CFC had the infrastructure to do this during the CSM7 elections, but chose not to do so.

His point that nullsec voters will vote long ballots, and non-bloc voters will vote short ones is based on a big assumption, but for the purposes of argument, let us assume he is correct. Under the old system, the non-bloc voters could only vote for one candidate. Under the new system, each additional candidate they vote for increases the chance their vote will help elect someone. Last year, about 25% of the ballots were cast for candidates that did not get elected. This year, the number of wasted ballots will be significantly less.

Next, Mittens argues that the forums and other messaging don't matter. While he has a point that get-out-the-vote efforts are a big factor in winning elections, for independent candidates who don't have the luxury of an organized bloc voting for them, forums, Twitter, blogs, and podcasts are a key part in both defining your candidacy and getting other people to help you get out the vote.

Furthermore, he failed to recognize a very important difference this time around: under STV, independent candidates are no longer forced to compete for votes. Instead, they can cooperate to increase turnout and recommend each other to their supporters, secure in the knowledge that if they don't get elected, the votes they generate will help elect someone likely to share their views.

As for The Mittani's analysis of the candidates, he is of course entitled to his own opinion. However, I was surprised that he seems to think that there are still "Alt" slots in the CSM, especially since we more or less ignored that distinction in CSM6, completely ignored it in CSM7, and it was written out of the White Paper for CSM8. Under STV, you either get a seat or you don't; the successful candidates don't have a meaningful ranking.

So what was the point of The Mittani's analysis? Well, LOLs for one thing; he has a wicked sense of humor that I personally find most entertaining. But I suspect that a major reason for posting it was to try and induce some apathy in the non-bloc population and reduce their turnout -- because he did get one thing right: representation on the CSM depends on how much of the vote you and your friends get, and depressing the non-bloc turnout might result in an extra seat for his friends.

As a lawyer, Mittens is surely aware of the old trial lawyer's adage: "If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts. If both the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table."

Expect more table pounding in the days and weeks to come... and then ignore the "realtalk" and get out there and vote for the candidates you think are the best.

Election Evolution

CCP has just announced big changes to the way the CSM elections work. The CSM elections will now use the Single Transferrable Vote system, and EVE players will be able to vote for more than one candidate. If their preferred candidate can't get elected or doesn't need all of their voting power, all or part of it will transfer to other candidates on their ballot.

In the last CSM election, almost 25% of the votes went to candidates who didn't get elected. This time around, that percentage will be much lower. If you vote in the election, and vote for more than one candidate, you can be pretty sure your vote will help elect someone you like -- and you can vote for up to 14 candidates.

No more excuses like "The guy I like can't get elected". Now he, or someone else you like, has a much better chance. So go and make your voice heard - and encourage others to do the same.

Oh, and if you've thought about running for CSM but decided not to because "I can't get enough votes" or "I might just siphon off votes and cost another guy like me a seat", now you have to think about it again.

And finally, if your excuse was "No way I can get into the top seven and get to go to a summit", that's been fixed too. If you get on the CSM and work hard, you will be on a plane to Iceland at some point during your term.

It's going to be fun watching how all of this unfolds. I hope you'll take the time to get involved... as an informed voter... and maybe, as a candidate.

Once more unto the breach, dear pods, once more!

After much consideration, I've decided to run for CSM8. You can read more about my platform on my campaign page and EVE-O forum thread.

I expect the CSM8 election campaign to the most intense yet -- should be a lot of fun, for certain values of fun.

They have a cunning plan!

On Thursday, CSM was briefed on the results of CCP's planning process.

The plan is significantly more ambitious than what we've seen in the last few expansions. While I can't go into any specific details, I think it's fair to say that the new planning process has worked well, and that CSM input was taken into account.

CSM will of course be pushing for CCP to produce some significant devblogs sooner rather than later, and CCP will be making a major announcement at PAX East (March 22-24). Stay tuned!

Variations on a Theme

Just a quick update on how CSM's involvement in CCP's planning process is proceeding.

On Friday, January 18th, we sent our sample themes to CCP Seagull. In return, on January 23rd, CSM got a package of the themes created by CCP teams, performed a quick analysis of them, and sent her our recommendations.

While I can't go into any specifics, I found the CCP themes to be very interesting reading, and they gave me more insight into how people at CCP are addressing the new planning system.

Today, Monday the 28th, we had a followup meeting with CCP Seagull.  She gave us a broad overview of the overall theme that had been decided upon, which the CSM members present strongly endorsed. Over the next week, CCP will be determining what set of features best fits the theme and is practical given time and resource constraints.

CSM will receive a package of materials on Friday related to CCP's initial prioritization decisions and will provide our trademark :48hour: turnaround on them.

Based on what has happened so far, I am cautiously optimistic that the new planning process is going to do a good job of ensuring that CCP does a better job of delivering an expansion with good "bang-for-buck" when it comes to pleasing the community.

Begun, The Planning Wars Have...

CCP has now begun their planning process for the May expansion, and true to the promises made at the Summit by CCP Unifex, CCP Seagull and CCP Ripley, CSM has been given unprecedented access; for the first time, we are being consulted before any significant decisions have been made.

Because of the NDA nature of a lot of what is being discussed, this post will be short on specific details, but I do want to give the community an update on what's happened so far.

Last week, all the major feature teams at CCP made presentations about what features they could potentially work on for release in May; these ranged from big ideas to little things, and from things they'd just like to do to things they'd already done substantial work on. Some were standalone items, while others were dependent on other items (often items from other teams).

Then all the feature teams were given a task -- come up with a "theme" that combines features from all the teams into a package that forms a coherent expansion.

On Wednesday, about the time the Minutes were published, CSM received copies of all the presentations as well as a video recording.

This morning, we had a Skype conference with CCP Seagull. We presented our evaluation of the feature proposals, and received more information on how the planning process was to proceed.

We received a further task: to create our own themes, in order to help CCP Seagull understand what kind of themes the Community might like. While we obviously don't have the same information as CCP teams do (such as the complexity of some of the features and their interactions), she feels that this will be useful in helping evaluate CCP's theme proposals. We will be delivering these themes on Monday, 1/21.

Once all the themes are received, CSM will be provided with copies of all of them. By the end of the week, CCP Seagull will have created a shortlist of candidate themes, and CSM will be told which they are. We currently are scheduled to discuss the shortlist with her on Monday, 1/28.

CCP certainly seems to be executing on their promise to iterate on "CSM as a Stakeholder"... :)

Addendum: I've been asked to give my personal opinion about all of this. While it is early days yet, I am very pleased with the level of access CSM is getting, and all the meetings have been very productive. I look forward to seeing how things evolve, and I feel comfortable in saying that I and other people on CSM are looking forward to putting a lot of effort into trying to help make this new planning process work.

Winter Summit Quick Wrapup

I won't spend a lot of time getting into details in this post, because the CSM is committed to getting a good portion of the Meeting Minutes published to the community before the end of the year, Mayan Apocalypse permitting. As soon as we get back home, we're going into full gear, and most of the devs we met have been able to promise they will review the minutes in :48hours:, even if it means interrupting their Xmas vacations. Thanks in advance for that.

In general, the summit went quite well, though there were a few times when we had to say some things that certain people were not expecting to hear. However, I think it's encouraging that this was a bit rarer than in certain past CSM summits.

The schedule died in a fire by lunchtime on the first day as it became clear that extra meetings were required (we had to stay late every day). My thanks to CCP Xhagen and CCP Dolan for keeping all the balls in the air.

I must admit to going into the summit wondering how CCP was going to address the challenges of the future, especially how they are going to take on bigger feature projects without succumbing to the mistakes of the past. But after many discussions with people at different levels of the company, I am more confident that they have an ambitious but well-considered development strategy, and the right people in the right roles to execute the strategy. CCP is going to be explaining this all to the community in the very near future.

This is not to say that what they want to do will be easy, or without risks -- it won't. But while they are going to take big bites in 2013 and beyond, I don't think they will be biting off more than they can chew.

And of course, it will be interesting to see if the community will swallow it. ;)

Farewell, Colleague

By now, most readers of this blog will have heard the sad news that Sean "Vile Rat" Smith was one of the 4 State Department employees murdered in Benghazi.

Sean and I did not cross paths in the game itself, only on the CSM. On CSM 6, he was exactly what he was in real-life; a quiet, sober, dedicated public servant. He didn't care about the limelight, he just wanted to get things done.

And now he's gone, dead at the hands of ignorance and intolerance, and from the hatred that always springs from those eternal sources of human suffering.

A fund is being set up to accept contributions to help Sean's family; the details will come out in a few days. Please do your part to lighten their burden. The money will help, but knowing that you cared will help even more.

Gambling by Mail

The results of the elections are in, and I've been re-elected in 5th place with 3184 votes.

But a much more relevant number is 718. This is how many more votes I received than I needed to get into the top 7 -- the CSMs who are assured of attending summits. Or to put it another way, if I'd gotten 719 fewer votes, I'd have come in 8th.

That number, and the structure of the elections, explains why I mass-mailed a lot of people on the first day of the elections. It's important to recognize that positions 8-14 are equally valuable (well, 8th has a chance of getting to go to Iceland if someone can't make it). So if you think you're going to come in 9th or 10th, taking a risk that might shift you a few places is, in effect, a bet you can't lose. If it hurts you, you come in 11th or 12th, which is effectively no loss. If it helps you, you might squeak into the top 7.

Given the situation I was in, with many high-quality candidates fishing in my voting pool, I guessed that I would end up somewhere from 8th to 10th place. I might just squeak in to 7th place, but it was iffy.

So it was time to roll the dice, and see what happened.

The mailing contained a link that redirected through my server to my voting page. After eliminating duplicates and obvious spam attempts (the one from an IP address in India was the most amusing), this link got 2235 hits during the election.

However, I used the same link in my forums signature and in my thread (a thoughtless oversight), so this number does not just represent the results of the mailing.

A more interesting number is 1020 -- the number of hits that came via the EVE In-Game Browser, since these were much more likely to have come from people reading the EVE Mail.

Thus, counting the fact that I lost some votes due to the mailing, and that some of the hits do not represent actual votes, I think a reasonable estimate is that the mailing netted me around 750 votes, +/- 150 or so.

We will never know if I actually needed the extra votes I got from the mailing. But I think I made a smart bet -- in particular when you consider the results for Two step, Kelduum and Hans, all excellent candidates who were definitely competing with me for votes.

Congratulations to all the members of CSM 7, both the n00bs and our returning champions. Tonight we celebrate, tomorrow we fly home, and on Monday it's back to work.

An Open Reply to Susan Black

Yesterday, Susan Black (aka GamerChick42) posted an open letter chiding me for using evemail to solicit for votes. I thought I'd take a few moments to reply to her concerns.

First, Susan seems to think any unsolicited email is spam. For example, it is my standard practice to evemail people who post an encouraging message in my campaign thread, both to thank them and to solicit their help in rounding up votes. By Susan's definition (perhaps because I grouped together 5 or 6 people in the email) this is spam. I'm sorry, Susan, but I strongly disagree that replying to a posting in my campaign thread with an evemail is spam.

But of course, the email that really upset her was the one I did to a large number of players right after voting opened. Susan seems to think that in one devastating master-stroke, I have opened the gates that will permit a flood of unsolicited email to pollute her inbox. I believe her concerns are unwarranted.

CCP has stated that unsolicited mass emails are not permitted, with one exception: active CSM candidates may send out such emails, but are strongly encouraged to do it at most once.

In the real world, at least in free democracies, political speech is traditionally less regulated than other kinds of speech, and for sound reasons. CCP has simply extended this principle into New Eden. Susan may not like it, just as I don't like political robocalls, but on balance, more speech is better. Susan's actions demonstrate this: her response to my speech (the email) was more speech (her open letter), which resulted in more speech (this reply). The result was that everyone has a better understanding of the event and the issues.

In the next part of the letter, Susan appeals to my better nature:

She says that I portray myself as someone who puts in long hours trying to improve the game for everyone. So how could such a person be so rude as to sully her inbox?

She says that I say I listen to the community, so how could I do something that many in that community don't like?

She says that I have disrespected the community by "grubbing around for votes" instead of engaging in open and honest communication.

And she ends by saying that even The Mittani wouldn't stoop this low, and implies that I used EULA-breaking methods to send out the mails. Sorry Susan, but this is not the case! I suggest you do some experiments and find out for yourself how easy it is to use EVE-Gate to do something like this. As for The Mittani, if I was sitting on a 4,000 vote head-start in the voting like he is (thanks to the Goon bloc vote), I would probably take the same relaxed approach to campaigning that he is -- though I wouldn't be as arrogant about it.

Funnily enough, when he learned what I was doing, The Mittani attempted to pump me for details about how and what I did (I told him nothing!), and apparently put a team of Goons to work doing a cost-benefit analysis. I guarantee you that if he felt he needed to, he wouldn't hesitate to pull an all-nighter, just like I did.

In this section, Susan -- laboring under a misconception -- appears to believe that "Trebor of the CSM" and "Trebor the CSM CANDIDATE" are the same guy.

They are most definitely not.

Trebor of the CSM is the guy described in the evemail, who puts in the hours working for the community.

Trebor the CSM Candidate is a guy currently engaged in a vicious, all-out PvP cage-match with the other candidates for votes. Trebor the CSM Candidate knows that if he doesn't get enough votes, he doesn't get to be Trebor of the CSM, and that with only 7 people going to Iceland in the future, that cage-match went from a knife-fight to a gun-fight.

For most of the year, I'm Trebor of the CSM, hard-working Mr. Nice Guy. But during elections, I'm a vote-grubbing machine -- not because I like being that, but because the current election system requires that I be that. To do any less would be to betray those who support me.

That's why I didn't bring a knife to the gun-fight -- I brought a shotgun. In one fell swoop, I not only caged extra votes, but I also slammed the door on the other candidates -- because most of the voters that could be swayed by such an email will have either voted for me, or if they were pissed at me, voted for other candidates which will very likely be candidates I would like to see elected! Susan is supporting Hans, so she should be very happy: I'm sure he got a couple of dozen extra votes out of this, maybe more.

I guarantee you that in their hearts, the other candidates are either pissed they didn't think of doing this, or pissed that I pre-empted them.

Jester gets the logic behind what I did in this post - I introduced a Pareto improvement into the election, and captured most of the new economic capacity (votes).

Finally, in her concluding section, Susan asks me to petition CCP to make this tactic out of bounds in the future.

Believe it or not, I have no problem with this. Indeed, the greatest victory for a gamer is doing something that forces a change in the rules of the game. However, I would much prefer this be done in the context of a change to the voting system that makes the results more representative of the preferences of the voters -- because that, more than anything else, will encourage the kind of campaign that Susan would like to see.

Sincerely,
Robert Woodhead

PS: You may be interested to know that another gamerchick (Mynxee) understood what I was up to and provided editorial feedback for both the final draft of the Mailshot Heard Round New Eden and this reply. Thanks, Carole! Love ya, babe!

Knocking on Doors in Outer Space

Last night was a busy night for me, because as soon as the polls opened, I initiated a plan that I'd been carefully working on for quite some  time.

The essential problem I faced with the CSM 7 election was that, with the possible exception of Seleene, I was the only major candidate without a core constituency.

The bloc candidates, of course, have their blocs to vote for them, and the other strong candidates either had mini-blocs or "functional" constituencies (such as Two step with wormholes and Hans with Factional Warfare). But I have always been a general candidate, attempting to represent the broader interests of the entire community, so I needed a way to reach my more diffuse constituency.

I knew it was going to be even harder than last year. Last year, you may recall, my campaign thread was heavily trolled, and I used that to my advantage. This year I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen, and sure enough, the trolls didn't show up.

But I had another option - retail politics. In order to drum up votes, I would have to knock on as many doors in New Eden as possible. I also knew from what I'd done in the previous election that directly contacting players via EVEmail was feasible -- I used it both on my behalf and also to help out other candidates (in particular, Meissa).

So over a month before the election, I began my preparations. I compiled a list of names, used the API to get their corp affiliation, and prioritized them. I consulted with CCP and got a ruling from a lead GM that, just like last year, sending a political EVEmail to a character was fine -- it was sending a ton of messages to the same character that was against the rules.

And the moment the polls opened, and I had the direct voting link, I sat down at the keyboard and poopsocked it. Some people are claiming that I used a bot; this is not the case. I merely took advantage of my hard-won knowledge of EVEGate to send them as efficiently as possible.

It was a long night... a very long night. But hey, everyone who's worked with me on CSM will tell you I'm a hard worker!

The Political Calculus

Before embarking upon this project, I had to figure out whether or not it would be effective. And as it happens, I had the statistics from my efforts in the CSM6 elections. Based on that experience, I knew that:

* Almost all of the recipients who would flame me wouldn't have voted for me anyway.

* I would lose very few votes from supporters who were offended by the tactic, in particular because if they were, they would typically get in touch with me, and I would be able to explain why I did it.

* I would gain votes from the general community who hadn't been that involved in the election so far.

* I would be able to appeal to my supporters to lobby their in-game social groups on my behalf.

And finally, and perhaps most critically:

* I knew that if I didn't do it, someone else probably would. People had seen what I'd done last year, and other candidates had far more resources (whole alliances) than I did. Furthermore, the benefits would go to the candidate who struck first.

So that's why I pulled an all-nighter.

One of the few amusing moments during this grind-fest came in the wee hours of the morning, when The Mittani started asking me all sorts of questions on Skype about how I was doing it. He was clearly impressed -- and I'm not telling him a damn thing until after the polls are closed!

As you might expect, I've gotten a ton of EVEmail in the aftermath of my mailgasm. You will probably be shocked at how high the positive/negative ratio is.

But you won't be shocked about how tired I am right now.

The MailShot Heard Round New Eden

Just in case you haven't seen it, here's what I sent out:

Over the past two years, I have spent countless hours pushing CCP to improve the game for the benefit of the entire EVE community, not just one narrow interest group.

I am not the guy who arrogantly styles himself the King of Space and proclaims that your opinions are worthless.

I am the guy who thinks your opinions matter and that the CSM is about pushing hard for what the community wants.

I am the guy who spends at least an hour a day listening to the community and keeping you informed.

I am the guy who used crowdsourcing to show CCP what you really wanted. When they finally woke up last fall and realized you want spaceships, my lists of what you wanted told them exactly what they needed to do.

I am the guy who pushed hard for the removal of Learning Skills -- and made sure it got done right.

I am the guy who has been pushing for User Interface improvements every day, and now CCP is devoting more resources to the UI than ever before.

I am the guy who has been pushing for Industrial and POS improvements, building support for them, for two years. Guess what all the new candidates are talking about now?

I am the guy who has been endorsed by four members of CSM 6, the chairman of CSM 5, Cerain, Malcanis, Erik Finnegan, and Jester the EVE superblogger.

I am the guy who has been pushing and pushing and pushing on your behalf for two years -- and getting steady results.

Now I need you to push the VOTE button so that I can keep on working for you.

> > > USE THIS URL TO VOTE FOR ME - http://www.animeigo.com/Vote4Trebor < < <

(You will be sent to the EVE Website in order to vote, and asked to log in. If you have multiple accounts, you get one vote per account, but you will have to log out of your current account and re-click the link in order to vote again. The direct link to the Election page is http://community.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=425 in case you need it)

After you have voted, push some more. Push this EVEmail to your friends and corpmates by clicking the FORWARD button. If you are using EVEGate, you will have to use the REPLY button and edit the To: line, otherwise the formatting will be messed up.

If you push for me, I will keep on pushing for you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for voting.

Sincerely,
Robert Woodhead (aka Trebor)

PS: Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have questions or suggestions. Here are some handy links:

Campaign Thread - http://www.animeigo.com/EVEForumCampaignThread

My Blog: Confessions of a Starship Politician - http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/

The July 2011 Crowdsourcing - http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/July_2011_Prioritization_Crowdsourcing