CSM 6 race: ze application period, it is now !

It's that time of the year.

In the previous elections, I've more or less vocally endorsed a shortlist of candidates, among those who seemed to me like they both had a decent shot at getting elected, and at making a positive contribution, were they to be, but this year I've also toyed with the idea of running for a CSM seat myself, after a friend suggested I put my posterior where my mouth is, instead of the usual converse.

Some of the CSM application rules are giving me pause, however:

The requirements to be able to run as a candidate in the CSM6 elections are as follows:

• You must have an active EVE Online account that is older than 30 days.
• You must be aged 21 years or older as of April 6, 2011.
• You must provide your address and an e-mail address where you can be reached, which will not be made public.
• You must provide a scan or reasonable quality photograph of a valid passport to verify your identity and that you can travel internationally to the CCP HQ in Reykjavik, Iceland.
• You must be willing and able to sign a non-disclosure agreement with CCP as the CSM are very often provided with information that is not for public release.

So far, so good, but there's more…

• You must be willing for your real name and country of residence to be made public alongside your character name on the EVE Online website. Other personal details required for candidacy will not be made public.
• You must provide a campaign message stating your reasons for running, in no more than 200 words.
• You must have up to date and accurate account ownership information on all of your EVE Online accounts.

Summing up my reasons for running in less than 200 words is a bit tricky, but I can manage… as for the other two ?

Is it worth the trouble of exposing my meatspace ID to the spacetards constituency ? I happen to like my privacy and, no disrespect to those who ran for CSM thus far, but the user base of EVE is not the most well-adjusted crowd I've met in my life, to which I'm not sure I want to expose my family.

Of note: many a CCP employee seem to agree with me on this, and they are allowed to stick to their CCP handle and not put out their TrueName™ out there for all the interweb crazies.

Up to date and accurate account ownership information on all of your EVE Online accounts… boy, I do I want to go there ?

Let's, for the lulz:

I've been keeping accounts alive for friends, managing corporate drones herds, and generally playing fast and loose with the no-account-sharing part of the EULA from roughly day 20 of my stay in New Eden. …but then again, so have most of the CSM past and present to the best of my knowledge (which amounts to 100% certainty about several of them), so I shouldn't care, right ?

So it's a case of starting off the wrong foot, and lie through my teeth, or boldly put myself out there as an ebil EULA defiler.

I don't like these odds.

So this year, I'm going to offer suggestions about the best and worst candidates I can see on the ballot, and add to my lobby-your-CSM grocery list a suggestion to change the CSM election rules about ID divulgation by next session.

Woot, I have my next two posts cut out for me.