Hats, rings, and biases

A movie critic that I follow sometimes prefaces all of her movie reviews with a set of biases: opinions she had walking into the theater that might bias her in favor of or against a particular movie.  That way if she gives a positive review to some wretched piece of junk whose momentum stops dead every time the music starts, you know that it's in part because she's a huge fan of the original musical.  She was likely going to like it even if it was wretched.  It's an approach that makes a lot of sense, and helps the reader draw their own conclusions about what she's writing.

Having started my second read-through of the CSM December Summit Minutes and starting to outline some blog posts around it, I think that it's only fair to go ahead and confirm a "bias" I have since that bias is going to influence those posts.

It's currently my intention to seek a position on CSM8.

I've been thinking long and hard about this, and in particular reviewing the reasons that I decided not to run last year.  They were very good reasons, and all of them still apply.  When I eventually decided not to run last year, I made it clear that I made that decision because the reasons for me not to run outweighed the reasons for me to run.  In particular, I pointed out that:

• I felt CSM6 as a group had done a good job;
• lots of people whose work I respected from CSM6 were running for re-election and I didn't want to take votes away from them;
• at the time, I was the only blogger really watching and commenting on the CSM's activities; and,
• I didn't want to lose my freedom as an independent observer of CCP's and the CSM's actions without a good reason to do so.

This year, though?  Almost none of those things apply.

Individual members of CSM7, such as Alekseyev Karrde, Hans Jagerblitzen, Trebor Daehdoow, and Two step in particular, have done good jobs.  Yes, I think that even when I've crossed swords with them, when I thought they made bone-headed decisions.  As you know, I can think two contradictory things at once, no problem.  Others -- this list includes Elise Randolph and Kelduum Revaan -- might have done good jobs or might have not done good jobs, but have been so freakin' invisible to the players it hasn't mattered.  And as a group?  As a group, I don't think CSM7 has been successful.  And quite frankly, I have to put that down to a failure of leadership.  Seleene has not done a good job as CSM Chair.  Whether you call it lack of activism as I do, or being too close to CCP as others do, CSM7 as a group has been pretty quiet, passive, and reactive.  That's one thing, and I'll have more to say about this topic presently... the next post, in fact.

Second thing?  CSM7 members are coming out of the woodwork to say how ready they are to be out of there, and that started with the ones I thought were doing good jobs.  Hans and Two step?  Confirmed gone.  Alek?  All but confirmed gone; people have told me he's said so in public, but I can't find it.  Trebor hasn't said one way or another, but he started this term saying that he felt like it might be his last.(1)  In fact, not a single member of CSM7 has yet confirmed they're running again.  That leaves the very scary prospect that the CSM7 members that do run for reelection will be third-stringers at best and Darius III at worst.

This year, I've been pleased to see how many bloggers have stepped up as CSM watchers like myself.  Poetic Stanziel is the most prominent, of course, but lots of blogs are keeping track in one way or another.  There would be quite a bit of -- *cough* -- poetic justice in that if I win, I'd be in the same position The Mittani was in when CSM6 started.  I'd have a prominent blogger who has every reason to be skeptical about me watching my every move.  ;-)

And finally, there's a good reason for me to risk losing my status as an independent observer: I could blog and write and contribute to the CSM's communication strategy from the inside and in so doing actually ensure that CSM8 actually, you know, has a communications strategy.  When the CSM7 election started, it seemed assured that with Mittens at the helm there would be no problem in this regard.  Who could have possibly guessed things would crash so hard?

And even if half the things I want to write would be NDA'ed, I could write them and them file them away anticipating the end of the NDA.  And there'd be fun things I could write about that CCP couldn't NDA, like what it's actually like to be on the CSM, the process, the meetings, what all of you out there ask me to do, et cetera et cetera.  I don't think output around here would suffer.

So yeah, I'm running.  Again.  I'll have a thread up in Jita Park in a few days time and kick off a more or less official campaign starting in February.  Those of you who disagree with this decision may begin bitching at me... now.


(1) I personally hope it is not.  If he runs, I will likely follow my CSM6 voting strategy: all of my votes but one for me, the last vote for Trebor.