Update! This post have been rewritten with better mathematical model, read that, ignore this!
The CSM election is all over the EVE blogs. Like last year, using the official data, I created a cross-vote table. This table shows how voters of one candidate supported other candidates:
Let's start with Podli, Psychobitch, corebloodbrothers and Dnsblack. They are mavericks. Their columns are red, meaning that voters of other candidates did not support them. The lines of the first three are red, meaning that their voters supported nobody else significantly. Dnsblack voters supported the "good block". Only corebloodbrothers got elected from them, having Providence block behind him. They also had the largest "nobody" supporter base (last column), with corebloodbrothers having 70% votes that didn't have 4 other candidates on it. 1736 votes had no other candidates, just him. These non-winning candidates should reconsider running again. They all should seriously consider getting political agreements and cross-support, both to get in with votes coming from elsewhere, and to give their spillover votes to friendly candidates instead of letting them waste.
Psychotic Monk, and Funkybeacon should be good example to them: they had mediocre cross-support, and DJ Funkybeacon had cross-support with Gorski Car and Sugar Kyle. He got in in.
The next group to discuss is the wormholers. They were 5 but Karen Galeo isn't on the table for being irrelevant. While the rest 4 cross-supported each other in the green, which should indicate strong support, but please note that green had only 34% limit, and most votes are close to that. Wormholers did not follow the official "support all WH candidates" line, wasting votes and getting only Corbexx in. More on them at Foo's.
The next block contains 2 PL candidates (Gorski Car, Major JSilva), Aram Kachaturian of Pasta and progodlegend of Nulli. I have no idea how the Pasta guy got into the N3PL block, probably nullsec+Grr Goons. Anyway, strong cross support, little outside support (with an exception mentioned later).
The next to mention are Matias Otero and Mangala Solaris with OK-ish cross support to each other. Matias had cross-support with Progodlegend, Mangala with Mike Azariah. But the peculiar thing is that their voters supported the "good ones" block, but they received little support. This means that their voters liked the "good ones", but the voters of the "good ones" didn't like them. More about it later.
Now we are getting close to the big story. The "good ones" block, all elected: Steve Ronuken, Sugar Kyle, Mike Azariah, Ali Aras, Xander Phoena, with the core being Steve, Sugar and Mike with good cross-support.
The CFC block: Ali Aras, Xander Phoena, Jayne Fillon, mynnna, Sion Kumitomo, Angry Mustache. Very strong cross support for all of them except for Angry Mustache, but that is probably just artifact coming from my 5-vote cut-off. Noizygamer told that the CFC ballot ranked him 6th position after the other 5, 7th being Mangala. In the defense of my method, he did not get in, proving that a 6th position support is not real support. Even the 5th position Jayne Fillon didn't get in. Now to the point: the CFC political manipulation. From the last election they knew that they have enough voters for 2 seats, but they wanted more. They had two tricks, one failed (though I wish it failed a bit harder), the other worked perfectly, even fooling me.
The one that failed is putting Mynnna behind. The plan was that Mynnna is widely acknowledged to be a skilled and hard working CSM8. Even Ripard - the central figure of the oppossing "non-aligned block" of CSM8 - suggested people to support him and expressed surprise for no outside votes. Well, if you look at the table, it's not completely true, he got some support from the N3PL block voters, probably for the nice meta-gaming trick of putting progodlegend and Major JSilva to the irrelevant positions of the CFC ballot. But Ripard is right, except for the baited N3PL guys, no outside support arrived to Mynnna. Why? Because he is a Goon and the image of Goons outside CFC is so bad that if there would be evidence that the European Union leaders are Goons, the EU EVE players would take Russian language crash-courses and occupy government buildings in unmarked uniforms.
The part is where it could fail a bit harder is Mangala. There is a huge surprise in the community for him losing 2/3 of his #1 votes, half if we consider the overall voter drop. I shamelessly take credit for that: I spammed every possible channel with "RvB is Goon slave" and as you could see it with Mynnna, being associated with the Goons isn't the best way to get outside votes. This, combined with the fact that Goons supported him too low on their list and simply had no voting power left to actually help him, he almost fell out. Almost. As I mentioned, his voters gave support to the "good ones" block, meaning that this is the true home of his people. I guess I'd be the last guy whose advice Mangala would take, but I tell it anyway: your people do not want to be Goon slaves. Cut ties with the Goons, kick the open Goon alts like Professor Clio and Del and align with the "good ones", supporting highsec and lowsec people. If you keep on being a Goon servant, you'll lose not only the next election but probably RvB collapses too. How long do you expect your people to follow you in wars against highsec (what they like) for Goons?
On demand, more Mangala analysis. It came from the permanent seat elections. One by one, candidates were eliminated and their votes given to the next preference of voters. This graph shows how big part of the votes went to Mangala when someone was eliminated and where his votes went:
The Goon trick that worked well was planting 3 Trojan Horses: Ali, Xander and Jayne. They didn't campaing with a Goon arm patch, actually they campaigned with neutral and non-aligned platform. Jayne failed only because he was exposed by Seraph IX Besarab as a spy and meta-gamer, and soon the rumor got out "he infiltrated Bombers Bar for Goons". From his #5 CFC ballot position, it's likely true, but that doesn't matter. Even the rumor of Goon affiliation was enough to finish him, his only outside support came from Mangala (and that's not really "outside").
Xander - despite his Gents tag - fared much better, probably due to his famous podcast. He was classified into the "good ones" block automatically, but please notice that while he received yellow support from the good core, he gave much worse support in return. His core voters were CFC but he successfully hijacked some "good ones" votes.
Ali Aras was complete success. Her column is red only for maverick voters. Practically everyone else loved Ali, catapulting her into the permanent seat. She even fooled me. Ripard was totally fooled, giving first and second preferences to Trojan horses. Despite there were signs like posting on the Goon propaganda site, she could maintain a neutral campaign and got strong outside support. She didn't need the votes coming from the #3 position of the CFC ballot, she would have been elected even if her name is erased from votes containing Sion. I have to admit the genius work of Goons here: getting a Goon CSM in with the votes of those who hate Goons. The only mistake they made is not trusting her enough. If they didn't put her to the CFC ballot, she would still get in without being exposed as a Goon and could be re-used next year. (I mean re-used as a Trojan horse, of course she can get in next year, but with CFC votes only).
What should we all learn from these results: politics matter. You can't just read the programs and support nice candidates. You must look for cross-votes, endorsements, pacts and such. I mean the other candidates and opinion leaders should, and voters should listen to them. I should have listened to those who suggested Steve and Mike to support. I don't have to like them. Pick your #1 after your personal preference, but the rest are hard politics. Learn from my fail! The Goons are not playing nice (surprise!), and we must not be naive. We must be careful and vote for only those who are proven to be not affiliated with those who want to destroy our game.
The CSM election is all over the EVE blogs. Like last year, using the official data, I created a cross-vote table. This table shows how voters of one candidate supported other candidates:
Let's start with Podli, Psychobitch, corebloodbrothers and Dnsblack. They are mavericks. Their columns are red, meaning that voters of other candidates did not support them. The lines of the first three are red, meaning that their voters supported nobody else significantly. Dnsblack voters supported the "good block". Only corebloodbrothers got elected from them, having Providence block behind him. They also had the largest "nobody" supporter base (last column), with corebloodbrothers having 70% votes that didn't have 4 other candidates on it. 1736 votes had no other candidates, just him. These non-winning candidates should reconsider running again. They all should seriously consider getting political agreements and cross-support, both to get in with votes coming from elsewhere, and to give their spillover votes to friendly candidates instead of letting them waste.
Psychotic Monk, and Funkybeacon should be good example to them: they had mediocre cross-support, and DJ Funkybeacon had cross-support with Gorski Car and Sugar Kyle. He got in in.
The next group to discuss is the wormholers. They were 5 but Karen Galeo isn't on the table for being irrelevant. While the rest 4 cross-supported each other in the green, which should indicate strong support, but please note that green had only 34% limit, and most votes are close to that. Wormholers did not follow the official "support all WH candidates" line, wasting votes and getting only Corbexx in. More on them at Foo's.
The next block contains 2 PL candidates (Gorski Car, Major JSilva), Aram Kachaturian of Pasta and progodlegend of Nulli. I have no idea how the Pasta guy got into the N3PL block, probably nullsec+Grr Goons. Anyway, strong cross support, little outside support (with an exception mentioned later).
The next to mention are Matias Otero and Mangala Solaris with OK-ish cross support to each other. Matias had cross-support with Progodlegend, Mangala with Mike Azariah. But the peculiar thing is that their voters supported the "good ones" block, but they received little support. This means that their voters liked the "good ones", but the voters of the "good ones" didn't like them. More about it later.
Now we are getting close to the big story. The "good ones" block, all elected: Steve Ronuken, Sugar Kyle, Mike Azariah, Ali Aras, Xander Phoena, with the core being Steve, Sugar and Mike with good cross-support.
The CFC block: Ali Aras, Xander Phoena, Jayne Fillon, mynnna, Sion Kumitomo, Angry Mustache. Very strong cross support for all of them except for Angry Mustache, but that is probably just artifact coming from my 5-vote cut-off. Noizygamer told that the CFC ballot ranked him 6th position after the other 5, 7th being Mangala. In the defense of my method, he did not get in, proving that a 6th position support is not real support. Even the 5th position Jayne Fillon didn't get in. Now to the point: the CFC political manipulation. From the last election they knew that they have enough voters for 2 seats, but they wanted more. They had two tricks, one failed (though I wish it failed a bit harder), the other worked perfectly, even fooling me.
The one that failed is putting Mynnna behind. The plan was that Mynnna is widely acknowledged to be a skilled and hard working CSM8. Even Ripard - the central figure of the oppossing "non-aligned block" of CSM8 - suggested people to support him and expressed surprise for no outside votes. Well, if you look at the table, it's not completely true, he got some support from the N3PL block voters, probably for the nice meta-gaming trick of putting progodlegend and Major JSilva to the irrelevant positions of the CFC ballot. But Ripard is right, except for the baited N3PL guys, no outside support arrived to Mynnna. Why? Because he is a Goon and the image of Goons outside CFC is so bad that if there would be evidence that the European Union leaders are Goons, the EU EVE players would take Russian language crash-courses and occupy government buildings in unmarked uniforms.
The part is where it could fail a bit harder is Mangala. There is a huge surprise in the community for him losing 2/3 of his #1 votes, half if we consider the overall voter drop. I shamelessly take credit for that: I spammed every possible channel with "RvB is Goon slave" and as you could see it with Mynnna, being associated with the Goons isn't the best way to get outside votes. This, combined with the fact that Goons supported him too low on their list and simply had no voting power left to actually help him, he almost fell out. Almost. As I mentioned, his voters gave support to the "good ones" block, meaning that this is the true home of his people. I guess I'd be the last guy whose advice Mangala would take, but I tell it anyway: your people do not want to be Goon slaves. Cut ties with the Goons, kick the open Goon alts like Professor Clio and Del and align with the "good ones", supporting highsec and lowsec people. If you keep on being a Goon servant, you'll lose not only the next election but probably RvB collapses too. How long do you expect your people to follow you in wars against highsec (what they like) for Goons?
On demand, more Mangala analysis. It came from the permanent seat elections. One by one, candidates were eliminated and their votes given to the next preference of voters. This graph shows how big part of the votes went to Mangala when someone was eliminated and where his votes went:
The Goon trick that worked well was planting 3 Trojan Horses: Ali, Xander and Jayne. They didn't campaing with a Goon arm patch, actually they campaigned with neutral and non-aligned platform. Jayne failed only because he was exposed by Seraph IX Besarab as a spy and meta-gamer, and soon the rumor got out "he infiltrated Bombers Bar for Goons". From his #5 CFC ballot position, it's likely true, but that doesn't matter. Even the rumor of Goon affiliation was enough to finish him, his only outside support came from Mangala (and that's not really "outside").
Xander - despite his Gents tag - fared much better, probably due to his famous podcast. He was classified into the "good ones" block automatically, but please notice that while he received yellow support from the good core, he gave much worse support in return. His core voters were CFC but he successfully hijacked some "good ones" votes.
Ali Aras was complete success. Her column is red only for maverick voters. Practically everyone else loved Ali, catapulting her into the permanent seat. She even fooled me. Ripard was totally fooled, giving first and second preferences to Trojan horses. Despite there were signs like posting on the Goon propaganda site, she could maintain a neutral campaign and got strong outside support. She didn't need the votes coming from the #3 position of the CFC ballot, she would have been elected even if her name is erased from votes containing Sion. I have to admit the genius work of Goons here: getting a Goon CSM in with the votes of those who hate Goons. The only mistake they made is not trusting her enough. If they didn't put her to the CFC ballot, she would still get in without being exposed as a Goon and could be re-used next year. (I mean re-used as a Trojan horse, of course she can get in next year, but with CFC votes only).
What should we all learn from these results: politics matter. You can't just read the programs and support nice candidates. You must look for cross-votes, endorsements, pacts and such. I mean the other candidates and opinion leaders should, and voters should listen to them. I should have listened to those who suggested Steve and Mike to support. I don't have to like them. Pick your #1 after your personal preference, but the rest are hard politics. Learn from my fail! The Goons are not playing nice (surprise!), and we must not be naive. We must be careful and vote for only those who are proven to be not affiliated with those who want to destroy our game.
22 comments:
My personal surprise at Mangala's vote is the dichotomy between the collapse in personal vote yet solid support outside of this.
"Something" happened to alienate his core support; yet had little influence on much of his outside support. I note the claims on this post of a possible cause. I can not state that this is correct, merely that something happened.
It is this contradiction that is remarkable.
@Foo: thanks for the links, they are added to my blog list.
I will make further calculations regarding Mangala.
Unless I'm mistaken, Ali is Noir who are unaffiliated to anyone due to being mercs and Jayne is Snigwaffe who hate the goons.
How are they both "CFC trojans"?
You might heard that the spies are spending their time in hostile organizations and claim to be loyal members of such organizations.
"You might heard that the spies are spending their time in hostile organizations and claim to be loyal members of such organizations."
By that logic, Gevlon, you yourself could be a Goon spy. Why should anyone trust you?
No one should. I'm presenting information which you can double check. You should judge everything I write on its own.
Ali and Jayne have both worked for themittani.com and presumably get paid by the CFC for their trouble.
Re: Mangala
I've never looked at a blt before but if I'm reading it right (and I did just skim it) it looks like Mangala was towards the bottom of a lot of "good guys" votes.
So it's possible that your 5 vote cutoff made the breadth of his support look weaker than it was, due to that support being so tepid.
That said I voted good guys and didn't vote for him.
I don't think Ali is a trojan. What I think is the Goons realised that they can only get in 2-3 CFC block members based purely off their own votes. Then they surveyed the field of the other blocks of political candidates and used their overvotes to make those results as beneficial to Goons as possible.
Ali isn't a spy, but she was the most Goon friendly of all the likely candidates, so the CFC chose to make sure that person got in above the others.
The worst part is that it's impossible to fight this. You can only do it if you have the voter discipline to know that everyone will back your first two candidates, then you can say influence wormhole elections to your benefit.
People need to list their block votes first and then instead of their next favourite candidate, their best candidate most likely to win off other votes
(Ali's career has been too erratic for her to be a spy. She would have been building a cover story for an election system no-one ever knew would be implemented)
Btw thanks for the article, this is the best analysis around
@Thomas: it's just arguing over words. "most Goon friendly" has the same effect as "spy". Maybe there was no smoke-filled-room conspiracy, merely "Ali was always good to us, let's support her". It doesn't matter. If Ali is good for Goons, she is bad for us.
Jayne and Mangala run open fleet events every weekend as part of Spectre Fleet and RvB Ganked. So, both of them had a lot of interaction with independent players. I know I voted for Jayne in my top 5 simply because of the Spectre Fleet open fleets. The whole collapse of Bomber's Bar thing, while on my radar, wasn't something that turned me off of voting for him.
Though, reading the article you linked too certainly makes things seem a bit more malicious than what I remember happening.
I've only recently come to realize that almost all of the Ganked, Spectre Fleet and Bomber's Bar activity involved raiding into Providence. As a high-sec, jack of all PVE person, what do I know about Null Sec? My PVP alt was involved with Faction Warfare, which is also free from Null Sec politics.
Who is the "us" in that comment? Highsec players, traders, members of lemmings, non CFC players, just yourself?
Noir may have bad relations with you (and I take both sides with salt, as far as I'm concerned you were both idiots in that situation and got what you deserved) but that doesn't make her bad for most people, in fact Noir have a reputation for not griefing unlike many other merc corps.
I don't think Goons are the good guys here, but I'm not convinced why everything they do is automatically bad, I'd prefer to weigh up these things myself.
Now take a look at core and add what jester said "he should have had nominated a number two" "there is no reason why provi doesn't have two people on the csm". compare that to last year when core came up short
http://evewho.com/pilot/Jayne+Fillon
Jayne Fillon has not ever been and probably will never be part of Sniggwaffe.
"Just because you put X to the 14th position, it doesn't mean you really care about him"
Who came 14th is probably an excellent indicator of who the electorate did not want elected. Voting someone in last place on an STV system is a sign of a protest vote. Statistically speaking there is no chance that the person last on a full ballot will ever receive your transfer. I don't know how clued in EVE players are on this but check the stats for a number 14 Vote out of curiosity it might tell a hidden story.
So I grabbed the data myself and did some playing around. One neat thing, is of the voters who picked Sion first, a whopping 98% had mynnna in their top 5, 92% had Ari and Xander, and 87% had Jayne. No other candidate had even close to such consistency on the ballots where they were first.
This gives a very strong indication that only the goon block put Sion first. On the other hand your analysis of what pairs appeared in the top 5 together shows that there were a number of other voters who had Sion but not first and did not bloc vote (I am one such voter, no allegiance to goons, but I put all the null sec people somewhere on my ballot. I think Sion may have been top 5). On the other hand, the mynnna first votes were much less consistent.
If Ali and Jayne writing for TMC is indicative of their "goon spy" status, I would like to point out that many nullsec leaders diametrically opposed to goons, such as Phreeze and Grath, are also on TMC staff and have articles published on the site. Does that make them goon spies as well?
Also, the Jayne piece by Seraph is an obvious hit piece constructed over a grudge.
@Tegiminis: Grath sending angry rants against Goons isn't "being on staff", unless you consider the White House lawyer sending letters demanding fixes of outright lies to Fox News makes him "Fox employee".
@Tegiminis: Grath sending angry rants against Goons isn't "being on staff", unless you consider the White House lawyer sending letters demanding fixes of outright lies to Fox News makes him "Fox employee".
It's kind of entertaining that you say I was "fooled" by Ali Aras when I say right in the endorsement post *that you link* that I was concerned about the TMC connection.
The simple fact is that I endorsed Ali and Xander because I felt they were the best possible candidates for the CSM, not because of politics (which I increasingly try to stay out of).
Other than that though, pretty good post!
Ali doesn't have to be 'always good for the Goons' to receive the votes but 'good more often than Steve Ronuken would be'.
But I do see your point, if you want an anti-CFC ballot you should also be be trying to select the non-Goon candidates that Goons hate
@Gevlon
Grath is a member of the staff. Go and look at the staff page if you don't believe me.
http://themittani.com/the-team
He hasn't been around lately (which makes me sad), but he was an active contributor for a bit.
People who take working for TMC to mean "they are goon spies" is silly. I'm not affiliated with goons, except through TMC. Our other most active editor, OhTakashawa, is from PL. Our most active writer, Hendrick, is from PL. While the site was originally a mostly-goon leadership, things changed over the course of last year, and now we strive to have a neutral association.
I know it serves good "grr goons!" propaganda purposes to paint TMC as a goon propaganda site, but the fact is we are trying to build a good site with writers from all over both EVE and the world. That's my goal, anyway; I couldn't give two shits about goons.
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