The Chair

I hope this doesn't hurt much...

So now that the official news is out I thought I would take a few minutes to explain what happened and how. After The Mittani stepped down, CSM 7 was faced with a first time occurrence and had to work fast to deal with it in order to hit the ground running when we took office on April 4, 2012. In order to do that, we had to go back to the CSM White Paper and consult with CCP as well on what our next move was. While many believed that the Chairmanship would simply pass down to the person with the next-highest vote count, the White Paper is very clear on this:

“If the Chairman decides to step down or rescind his responsibility at any time for any reason, a vote must be held among representatives to elect another Chairman.” (page 16 of white paper)

With this answered, the next order of business was determining just who could cast votes for the four official CSM positions (Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary and Vice Secretary). CSM 7 is the first CSM without 'alternates', a concept which was done away with at the December CSM 6 Summit.  That meant that all of the thirteen remaining CSM members would be able to cast votes for the positions. All of this was handled efficiently and quickly through a series of emails that culminated in a Skype conference call to iron out any lingering case. As a side note, CSM 7 intends to see the White Paper updated during our term to address some of the inconsistencies between it and how the Council is actually run these days and where we see it evolving in the future.

The Voting

The members of CSM 7 held a Skype conference this weekend to discuss a few future points of interest and nail down the elected positions. All but two members were present (Issler and Dovi) who emailed their votes in shortly thereafter. Each vote was taken separately after a short discussion on who the final candidates would be.

Chairman - I'm not going to speculate too much on this beyond saying that I believe my peers looked past my alliance tag to my non-partisan stance on many game issues, both as a player and a former dev. I'm honored to be chosen by them and will do everything I can to keep the CSM evolving and moving forward.

Vice Chairman - As I noted in my previous blog that looked at each of my fellow delegates, Trebor has become a pillar of the CSM and his posting to the Vice Chairman position is well earned. I expect he will do as he always does by being everywhere at once and lending a hand wherever one is needed.

Secretary - It is no surprise that Two Step is in what is traditionally known as one of the most demanding posts on the CSM. Along with many of the rest of us, Two Step is driven by a passion to improve on the CSM's communication with the player base and hold all of us accountable to that end.

Vice Secretary - Hans likes to write a lot so we decided to give him the title that pushes him to do just that. Hans is awesome.

Looking Forward

Now that this is done, we are all eager to get to work. I think all of us are hoping for a nice, quiet and productive CSM term this year.  Hey, it could happen! :)