The CSM Is Important - So Go Vote

Voting is open and its more important than even that everyone votes with all their accounts. In fact, despite the process being annoying as hell, you should vote for a full slate of 14 candidates.

Why? Because the CSM is important.

At the very least, the CSM forces developers and managers and product owners at CCP to check themselves and their thought processes when they have the face to face meetings with the CSM members once or twice a year. This is an invaluable check as it forces them to look at their assumptions and conclusions and make sure they are internally consistent.

Then on top of that, the CSM has a chance to challenge those assumptions. Sure, CCP may not listen; Incarna was proof enough of that. But at least the process has that feedback so when things go wrong (horribly horribly wrong) then CCP has that feedback to look at and say "oh, yeah, we see it now." Without the CSM, they may not have had that moment when the lightbulb went off.

On top of that CSM functions as a valuable sounding board for developers at CCP, giving direct advice on changes long before us the playerbase see them. And more recently the CSM has earned a real seat as a stakeholder. I'm 90% certain that without the CSM the POS changes announced as goals for Odyssey would not have been on the table.

The CSM is important. But its only as effective as the amount of effort we the players make in determining its composition. The more votes the more CCP has to take the CSM members seriously.

So go, vote. Make it matter.