On internet spaceship political candidacies and social experiments
This is a wank that is going to require some backstory, but please trust me, it's worth it.


EVE online is a relatively small but extremely unique space MMO. It's single-shard, everything that happens is in the same "universe" on one massive server. The developers regard the game as a massive sandbox, and unlike most games, the end-game content is largely dictated by player interactions. Players join together in corporations (think guilds) which then form alliances, and some alliances also band together voltron-style into coalitions. The eternal conflict between these organizations makes the game what it is. This leads to the occasional 3000-person fleet fight or massive political coup.

We're not going to talk about any of that.

We're going to talk about two tiny components of EVE online: Wormholes, and the CSM.

Wormholes and W-space are a particular section of the game that operates by slightly different rules. Suffice it to say, players that live in W-space generally enjoy getting into fights and then going out drinking together, as it were. Within the game, the w-space community is one of the more cohesive.

The Council of Stellar Management or CSM function as player representatives to the developers. The developers established the CSM after certain unfortunate events involving developer-players exploiting the game for their friends and badly broken gameplay decisions that any player could have told them was a bad idea. Over the years, the CSM has come to have increasing influence on the development of the game, generally for the better. Because they often have to give feedback on features that are not even being actively developed, the CSM operates under draconian NDAs.

The CSM is elected annually by the players. There are always many candidates, and a candidate's is dictated by whether they can mobilize a coherent support base. The Wormhole community is a very coherent support base, and in previous elections the wormhole candidates have done very well. This year, the previous wormhole candidate, Two Step, is stepping down, leading to a sort of primary among various potential replacements.


Now, meet Night Beagle.


Night Beagle is an enterprising member of a W-space organization called Insidious Design. Night Beagle posts a thread on the official forums announcing that he will be running for CSM as a wormhole candidate.

Night Beagle has Ideas. In particular, he thinks that the CSM representatives should operate as representatives of a true Athenian Democracy, and put every question to the masses for their decision. On the council of players that has to confer with the developers while under draconian NDAs.

This does not go over well.

Night Beagle is determined to make this work, over the objections of everyone else. He goes to the CSM section of the forums, and faces the objections ofg current member of the CSM and generally intelligent person Two Step. Night Beagle feels the need to explain how the CSM works to the current member of the CSM.

Meanwhile, back in the Wormhole forum, his original candidacy thread marches on. He admits that he has no idea what he's doing, that's the point! We don't need him, we just need to open our minds to truly democratic representation! He gains a supporter in his sockpuppet good friend Sojourner Rover.

Two Step continues to apply Earth Logic to little effect.

There's ample grains of amusement throughout all of the linked threads, including a brief introduction to the concept of ellipses and continued encouragement of constructive criticism.


But let's cut straight to the punchline. It's OK guys, he's not really the least qualified CSM candidate in the history of the game! It was just a social experiment for a research project!

Two Step gives the best possible response:

Jokes on you though, because all of my responses were for a PHD thesis I am writing about terrible political candidates in virtual worlds.

And then, to put icing on the whole thing, the entire Night Beagle debacle has annoyed the rest of the Wormhole community so much that they hunt down his corporation in their home system and destroy them. While it was too late to prevent his candidacy, it seems to have made everyone feel a little better about the whole thing.