CSM 11 Candidates, Part 3

CSM Candidate interviews keep on rolling in.  The staff at CSM Watch are doing a great and admirable job and I just get to sit back and try to process it all - which is actually tough as the incoming rate seems greater than my available time to listen to them.  My workload has gradually changed so that I no longer consistently have lunch hours I can use for writing.

I recommend checking out Declaration of War's two CSM panels (panel 1, panel 2), but I think that their approach last year was better.  This time I felt like they were covering the same broad question approach as CSM Watch, just in a panel setting.  Last year the panels were focused on a topic, which I think really brought out more depth in the candidates.

CSM Watch's Analysis Show 4 just was posted.  I've updated my last post to add links for those candidate reviewed therein, though I haven't listened to it yet.

Here is a very nice index to all of the candidates: CSM Watch 11.  

Top Notch Candidates

None this time - though I was pretty on the fence with Hyde and Diana.

Interesting Candidates

Mr. Hyde: (interview) (analysis) (forum)
A CSM to end the frigate menace? Seriously though, Mr Hyde came across very well in his interview. He was well composed and realistic about what the role of the CSM is. That said, his strength is clearly around ship balance and secondarily about the range of playstyles he's tried in his long Eve career. When we have a CSM election that has Apothne and Gorski car (and probably some others I don't know about) then is the ship balance expertise such a great strength. The risk for those who are into solo/small-gang is that all of these candidates will cannibalize each other enough that none get on. That said, the STV system means that this isn't as much of an issue as first past the post voting.

Gorski Car: (interview) (analysis) (forum)
Vote Gorksi CSM for drama? Is that what we really want after CSM X? Seriously, I hear from reputable people that Gorski has put a lot of effort and added a lot of value in his two partial CSM terms. At the same time he's been right at the center of a lot of the drama that has left many wondering if the CSM might be disbanded, and he's completely unapologetic about that. His strength is primarily in his solo / small-gang understanding (and as a FW player, let's be clear that it isn't for his FW dabblings), but this CSM election has some real heavy-weights of similar experience such as Apothne and Mr Hyde. So given that, what is Gorski's comparative advantage again?
(Disclaimer: I am a CZ editor and Gorksi is a CZ writer, though I've had little contact with him in that space.)

Diana Olympos: (interview) (analysis) (forum) (CZ articles) (DoW panel)
Diana is a new-ish player, but he has clearly gone out and done a huge amount of research about the CSM and the metagame. He is a pretty good communicator, but when I was listening to the CSM Watch interview I had trouble telling if his tendencies to sound unfocused are more about his command of English or fundamental to his style. I've included a link to Diana's CZ articles so that readers can review his written ideas and presentation for themselves. Since I started drafting this I've also heard his interview on Declarations of War, where he was probably the second most interesting (compared to Aryth to held a pretty dominant position). I'm wondering if someone who has a wide breadth of (perhaps shallow) insight on Eve is perhaps actually a better candidate than a narrow expert. I'm torn.

(Disclaimer: I am a CZ editor and Diana is a CZ writer, though I've only had conversations with Diana in CZ slack.)

Toxic Yaken: (interview) (analysis) (forum) (DoW panel)
He did much better in his CSM watch interview than he did in the panel on Declarations of War, where he seems to tune out and fade to the back - at one point giving an answer that didn't seem connected to the current question at all. I think people will agree that there is a need for a highsec candidate, but he didn't sell well that the candidate for highsec should be focused on the wardec scene - and if you were going for such a candidate wouldn't you look to Tora Bushido? I do like his idea of the wardec fee providing a pool of ISK that the defender can then win for themselves like a bounty on the attackers, but then we're getting into the realm of CSM as junior developer again.

Not Worth Your Time

Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci: (interview) (analysis) (forum)

Uriel had a good interview in terms of sounding relaxed, confident, and clear. The problem really is in the content: Uriel is presenting himself as a Lore candidate. The inevitable comparison is to Ashterothi's campaign last year, but Ash could also present himself as expert on factional warfare, teaching new players to PVP, and fairly knowledgeable on wormholes. Uriel has no alternative expertise to draw on. Further, he is also best known for pulling interesting unpublished nuggets from SiSi and Chaos, which seems to be problematic for a CSM under an NDA. Beyond his lore focus, in the interview he rattled off a list of lore-focused features and ideas, while at the same time acknowledging that this is not what a CSM does. I'm left with thinking that this interview was a great plug for a special liaison position to the ISD, but not for a CSM candidate.

Videran Pahedra: (interview) (no analysis show yet) (forum)
So he seems like a nice guy. Sadly, it's a bad sign when that's where the analysis starts and almost ends as well. He claims his constituency is all Eve players, which is the same thing as saying he has no constituency. His area of expertise is PVE industry, with a weak claim to a couple other aspects of Eve. He talks about CSM getting along with each other and with CCP, then names Xenuria as the single other CSM candidate he would want to serve alongside. That's going to plunge him to the bottom for a lot of people - I can just imagine what the CSM Analysis panel on him will sound like.