CCP decided to reduce the number of Council of Stellar Management (CSM) members to 10 members. All 10 will attend summits in Reykjavik.
This comes after increased transparency between players and the CSM process through the livestreaming of the summit January 30-February 2, 2017. In the past, the only way for players to learn about what had happened was through the summit notes, which often took quite a while to be published. By reducing the number of CSM members, CCP will cut down on the costs of flying the members to Iceland at least twice during their year-long term.
The relevant information from the dev blog can be found below:
The size of the CSM has not been static and has changed several times. The current number of delegates is 14. When that number was first implemented, half the council consisted of alternates. Another change saw all 14 become full members with CCP committing to flying 7 members to attend on-site summits. During the last two summits we’ve invited all members to attend in person as a temporary measure to strengthen the CSM.
We’ve now discussed future arrangements both internally, and with CSM 11, and we’ve decided to reduce the number of members to 10, all of which will be invited to summits.
CSM Past and Present
CSM XI has, at least from the outside, been much more smoothly run than CSM X which saw the removal/resignation of both corebloodbrothers and Gorga. Current Councilmember NoobMan has held several town halls to discuss the state of wormholes the latest of which can be found here. Providing further insight into how the CSM operates, Jin’taan has written weekly summaries of CSM attendance, what was discussed with CCP, and various other notes that can be found here.
The Council of Stellar Management was originally formed with 11 members with 2 permanent attendees who would be present at every meeting. The way the current system works is that the 14 candidates with the most votes are given seats, then if any CSM member resigns or is removed, through the single-transferable-vote system, the candidate with the next highest votes is selected.
CSM members serve year-long terms- from one fanfest until the next one and in the past were given free tickets and transportation to the event. The current council has just over 2 months left on their term and several capsuleers have already announced their candidacy for CSM XII.
The window to get on the ballot closes on February 17 and voting will open March 6th, one month before fanfest.
