In a recent dev blog CCP Leeloo announced that a new revision to the CSM White Paper was drafted and made available for public download and inspection.

Since the cast of CSM Watch, Cap Stable and our fellow contributors were beginning to organize this year’s effort to record and produce the CSM XI candidate interviews, we decided to look over the changes and try and understand what these changes would have on this year’s contest.

From initial responses from current member of CSMX it was revealed that many of the changes had been made with little to no review from the CSM and we now understand why. The specific language that we had questions about are as following:

“CCP employees, ISD volunteers, CCP interns, CCP affiliates, CCP strategic partners or employees of other gaming companies/games/gaming media and family members of CCP are all ineligible to run for the CSM. In cases were an active CSM delegate becomes involved in any of the above activities they must resign from the Council.” – CSM White Paper Jan. 8th, 2016

We sent a communication to CCP Manifest in attempts to get a clearer understanding over the language which has led to much handwringing amongst prospective CSM candidates:

January 10, 2016

From: Lanctharus

To: CCP manifest

CC: CCP Leeloo, CCP Falcon, CCP Logibro Hello Manifest, The crew of Cap Stable and CSM Watch are starting to gear up for the CSM candidate interviews and we had some questions in regards to the latest updates to the CSM White paper posted on January 8, 2016. The specific passage we have questions about is the following: “CCP employees, ISD volunteers, CCP interns, CCP affiliates, CCP strategic partners or employees of other gaming companies/games/gaming media and family members of CCP are all ineligible to run for the CSM. In cases were an active CSM delegate becomes involved in any of the above activities they must resign from the Council. “ Our first question is if it can be possible to get a list of CCP affiliates and strategic partners. Our second question is what is the effective start date of these changes? The third question is what criteria is being used to classify an organization as a “gaming media” organization? We ask because we would like clarification on sites such as The Mittani Media, EVE News 24 and Crossing Zebras are considered official gaming media sites? The Mittani Media and EN24 to our knowledge are both for profit media sites and TMC has in the recent past sent employees to participate at E3 which would classify it as a game media concern. In addition, The Mitanni Media engaged itself in a partnership with CCP to produce The Fountain War book, provided streaming coverage for EVE Vegas and has a sponsorship deal with CCP for production of The Meta Show. Also depending on the effective date of this latest White Paper revision and as also stated on the previous draft of the White Paper, would this not have invalidated Sion Kumitomo to serve as a CSM member seeing that he is an employee of The Mittani Media? We look forward to your help as we continue researching the White Paper and the returning and new prospects for CSM XI and report our findings. Sincerely, Lanctharus Onzo

Executive Editor, CSM Watch

Co-Host and Writer, Cap Stable Podcast

We received the following response from CCP Manifest:

January 11, 2016

From: CCP Manifest

To: Lanctharus I think CCP Leloo is planning on a separate interview with you already? Ned Coker || CCP Manifest || Senior PR and Social Media Lead ||

We have recently sent Leeloo an invitation to be on an episode of CSM Watch to discuss the CSM to our listeners and it is our hopes that she can provide further insight and clarification regarding the new language.

In addition, we reached out to The Mittani Media, EVE News 24 and Crossing Zebras for an official statement. We received a response from Niden Sommer, Editor In Chief of Crossing Zebras and Bobmon, Chief Editor from EVE News 24 respectively. In their responses they stated that they have been in communication with Leeloo who has assured them that they are considered fan sites and hence are not affected by the new ruling.

We have not yet received a response from The Mittani Media nor Sion Kumitomo, Director of Content.

We will continue to follow this story and will provide insight and analysis as soon as we are able to our listener and readers.