It’s around the time of year where we should be looking back at the CPM process and determining what worked, what didn’t work, and what should be adjusted before the next term. As we all await formal announcement of a CPM2 election date, I feel it’s important we talk about the white paper and adjustments that should be made.
Some of this is fairly important, and a few things are mundane. I’m arranging it in terms of where the relevant sections appear on the current white paper. I’ll bold the big issues and italicize the small ones.
Please note these are all my personal opinions, and I am not speaking for or on behalf of the CPM as a whole.
For reference, the current CPM white paper can be found here.
The Chairman
CPM1 and CSM9 both elected to pass on having a chairman this year, and I think it worked well for both parties. Currently the white paper states that selecting someone for this role is a must, and I disagree.
In many ways, our group was led by a variety of parties. IWS was our voice of experience, who brought wisdom from CPM0 to the table in dealing with CCP. Kevall brought a great deal of skill in pushing issues in front of CCP, speaking on a high level with the company and ensuring we had active communications all of the time. And Cross very much centered our council with his usual diplomatic demeanor.
We didn’t have a leader, and we didn’t need one. Some councils may elect otherwise, but I would state that the Chairman role should be considered optional. (Secretary, on the other hand, must be a thing. Documentation is critical.)
Internal voting for STV
Seriously? STV with seven people is dumb. That whole little thing can go. If seven people can’t come to a fair decision without STV, they aren’t fit to make that decision.
Age Eligibility
Currently, the age requirement for CPM is 21, which was the old requirement for the CSM one. This year, however, CSM’s requirements were changed to the following:
“To become an eligible candidate, a player must be 18 years of age or older, unless the legal age of majority in your home country is higher than 18, in which case the minimum age is the age of majority.”
This is an absolute no-brainer, but the CPM White Paper needs to adopt this language as well.
The Summit
The White Paper mandates that an in-person summit take place and that all members attend. It is very unfortunate that this did not happen and seems unlikely to happen during the CPM1 term. As much as I would like to retain the requirement, it actually may have ended up hurting the community in the long run, because we had no minutes of any kind to show for.
So what I’d like to do, is evolve the summit requirement to allow for a virtual summit. In such a situation, CCP and the CPM would need to collaborate to define which sessions needed to be on the agenda. Sessions would need to all be recorded, and minutes would need to be generated. After the appropriate adjustments to account for things under NDA, the minutes would need to be posted publicly. Furthermore, it should be mandated that this must take place within the first four months of the term. A virtual summit is better than no summit, and an early summit is better than a late summit.
Term Length
I felt the term length section was too vague in some places, and too specific in others. CCP does adjust term lengths, and they can vary widely. The CSM had a fairly short term this year because they moved Fanfest two months earlier. A term should be roughly one year. However, it should be required that in the event that a term will last longer than 12 months, that the election date is announced within 12 months of the start of the previous term.
Communication with CCP
This is just a minor note, it specifies email and internal forums, however the vast majority of our communications with CCP has been over Skype. (The CSM, I believe, is starting to use Slack for some things, but Slack sucks.) This section should be more general to allow for chat software or whatever other communication layers facilities effective communication.
