RocTheBoat
“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant”. ~Charles de Gaulle
With the opening of the candidacy for CSM 6 players have started to fire the opening salvo’s of their campaigns. Leading the charge (naturally enough given his military pedigree) is Col Rocweiler darling of the #tweetfleet with, according to his no doubt accurate calculations a veritable legion of female admirers.
Must be something to do with those shades.
Jesting aside Rocweiler’s recent comments on the monetization of the EVE API and Third Party Developers throws open a quandary with respect to the CSM process. Roc’s view is that “there are only two real options when it comes to the EVE API” remove it completely or introduce some form of quality control by CCP to ensure only the best make it through. One can see the value behind some of these statements – after all CCP probably doesn’t want its Intellectual Property sullied by poor or shoddy apps.
Far, far more concerning is that as one half of the development team behind the popular iphone app ‘Capsuleer’ is that Roc of course has a vested interest in seeing such apps ‘monetized’. Is it right therefore that the CSM be used as a defacto portal for businesses to lobby CCP on the function and profitability of the API service?
Roc strenuously objected to this view point;
“100% NO. The CSM should be involved in player to CCP communications regarding the game EVE Online”.
He is probably quite correct in this regard however how would this be put into practice in reality? CSM members have unique opportunities to meet and correspond with CCP which are beyond the regular player. Could we in fact see Third Party developers cosy up with CCP Devs (over a beer or two naturally) and mention, just in passing of course, how such and such a development could be of great benefit to them? And their wallets.
Within many political structures we see politicos being obliged to ‘register their interests’ although the CSM apparently has no such checks or balances. This isn’t a problem ordinarily but once we start considering the issue of third parties making revenue the picture changes. Would we see ‘popular’ forumites, bloggers or EVE personalities being hired and employed by third party businesses to secure the popular vote and then use that influence to pressure CCP into favouring their masters?
Roc admits that there is no way of knowing exactly how a CSM may use, or abuse, their position. As always players are required to trust their own instincts and what they know of the candidate before they vote – are difficult proposition in the murky world of EVE at the best of times. Whether abuse of such a position is worse with respect to seeking an ‘in game’ advantage or out of game profit is open to debate.
As for Colonel Rocweiler – well I shall leave that judgement to you, hoping you will read his comments and be informed by them in comparison to those he is running against. If he does snatch power and mount a military coup d’etat you can at least be assured of getting a dictator with appropriately overly large hat and spurious and expansive medal collection…..
Oh and shades. Mustn’t forget the shades.
C.
the hydrostatic capsule 
February 17, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Good post.
I have so many comments to make that I don’t know where to begin. I think it might be best that perhaps, if you are attending Fanfest, we sit down over a beer and cigar, and have a friendly chat.
You’ve glossed over a lot of issues: real world profitability of apps, political trust and hidden agendas, manipulation of position; the list goes on.
As far as me abusing the position of CSM to further profitability on apps such as Capsuleer, let me reiterate some public knowledge:
The coding powerhouse behind Capsuleer was PyjamaSam. He doesn’t even play Eve anymore, and has no interest in anything to do with Capsuleer.
On my own, I simply don’t have the Objective C savvy (yet) to do something that successful on my own. I was the mouthpiece of Capsuleer, the marketer, the business front end and usability specialist.
I have no hidden agenda for backdoor meetings with CCP.
February 17, 2011 at 5:03 pm
When the devs for Eve-Metrics and Evemon get involved with the CSM, then we can panic about third party influence on CCP.
As it is, there was a minor freak out about a maybe real memo passed around about NC and the NWC using their numbers to fill the CSM with their candidates and bitch at CCP about jump bridges and protecting tech moons. I’m more worried about that kind of thing happening than Aura for Droid getting bank for their hard work, or Eve-Metrics reopening because they are able to secure funding to keep their servers running.
February 17, 2011 at 6:44 pm
And yet another example of why I avoid politics. On the other hand, one must ask, so what? I mean, let us imagine for a moment some CSM member does share a money making scheme with CCP over a beer or two… what damage does that do actually? Hmm, CCP makes money?
I’m not sure I have a problem with that tbh.