Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

I've been employing Google Reader recently to aggregate Eve Online related blogs. If you're seeking Eve Online blogs here's the current list I'm regularly keeping track of in alphabetical order (as parsed from Google Reader's OPML export feed using a quick PHP SimpleXML script). The majority are wellsprings of player experiences, tips, and general wisdom the authors have gleaned from playing Eve.

I'll look into maintaining the full OPML feed here on the blog once I finish the redesign of a new Serendipity theme. Enjoy! And if you have an Eve Online related blog I've not yet added to my reading list then let me know!

• Aeon's EVE


• Arduron's Eve CSM Campaign Site


• Articulated Sky


• Bitter Old Noob: An EVE Online Blog


• Caldari Navy Ibis: Noob Adventures in New Eden


• Carebear on Helium


• Chimps in Space


• Congo Free State


• CrazyKinux's Musing


• Deranged Carebear


• DEREKEST BLOG


• Epic Words


• EVE Online - EVE-Pirate.com


• EVE Vault - The Ultimate Resource


• eve-online.com | devBlog


• eve-online.com | news from EvE


• EVE: The Vivitari Story


• EVE[geek] Eve news


• Fighting Broke


• Flashfresh - a pirate.


• Flavan's Adventures in Empire Space


• Hammer's Eve


• Hardcore Casual


• Hardin FAQ for CSM elections


• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah


• Ironfleet Towing And Salvage


• Jade Constantine for CSM - Eve Online


• Journey of an EVE-online pilot


• Just a Girl and Her Thorax


• Kane Rizzel - a Pirates Perspective


• Kraesslers Coyotes


• Lady in Space


• Massively


• Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal


• Max Torps's blog


• Miner With Fangs


• Morphisat's Blog


• Noghri_ViR 08!


• Nuyan's Hangout


• Odd Pod Out


• ofDanes


• Omber Zombie's CSM Campaign


• Ombeve


• One Tired Blogger


• postings from the edge


• PVE-LOG


• Ramblings of a forum whore


• Rantings of a Carebear


• Ryan Shwayder's Nerfbat


• Scratchpad


• Serenity Steele's Directive Perspicacity


• Shiplog of a Privateer


• Tales Of A BoB CEO


• Terra Nova


• The Ancient Gaming Noob


• ~The Caldari Piratess~


• The Defias Blog - An EVE-Online Blog


• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility


• Van Hemlock


• VoteDV


• Votrian's Eve Blog


• winterblink.com


• Worlds of Note


• Xyliana.com


• Your money or your life!

Other reading? Eve Tribune which unfortunately does not have any RSS or Atom feeds for some reason.

Just to add to your daily reading worries, I missed mentioning the debut of an independent Eve Online magazine at EVE Mag which has a current special issue covering interviews with about half of the CSM candidates. Just to add to the unusual practices of would-be CSM members, many candidates have yet to submit an interview resulting in even more lost public coverage of their campaigns. What's that saying about catching the early worm?

See the rest of earlier today's opinions about the CSM candidates and their public practices over on CSM: The Council Of Stellar Management Elections

I still don't feel too comforable posting to the Eve forums and adding to the noise to signal ratio (or detracting from it ), but the upcoming Council of Stellar Management elections being held in May are worth a wee mention here on my as yet rarely read blog. (Please subscribe - I don't even have ads to blind and dazzle you!).

Most notably I'm a blog whore, so obviously I put a lot of faith in community outreach via you local friendly blogosphere. It's interesting to note that the number of blog-connected candidates (who have blogs, or comment on other blogs) is far less than the number of candidates in total (or not - but as I said I'm still getting my feet wet on the forums but if the majority have blogs or dynamic websites they're doing a great job hiding them!).

I think it's minimally interesting because there is a segment of the community out there who won't fire up the forums regularly (how many folk have the forums blocked while sitting behind the office firewall again?) and not hitting the blog community with your point of view loses you that audience (says the guy with countless Eve blogs aggregated on Google Reader). So to be honest, the only candidates I really have a semi-grasp on are those either with blogs, or who have responded to blog posts, or who have managed to string more than 4 HTML tags together to make a website with information that requires actual scrolling down the page. In other words - not many. You merry few have grabbed my early attention so you're already ahead of the pack for my vote at least.

Where's the campaign love? Your audience sits just a few packets and cables away from some cheap hosting at $4.99 a month or even a free blog over on Blogspot.com. There's me...and well...me. But likely many others who remain anonymous lurking in the shadows quietly digesting web content outside the Eve forums.

Here's one very readable (do it now) example - Council of Stellar Management - Open Questions for Candidates courtesy of the Caldari Navy Ibis blog. How many of the candidates have responded since March 27th thus far? A whopping 6. Out of 30 candidates. What the frak? Where are the other 24?!! Do you not want my non-forum-reading vote?

At least I do know the missing 24 candidates' names courtesy of the one page Eve CSM website which lists their names, in-game portraits and a single catchphrase for each. I can't recommend the listing though since the site's author has personally recommended two candidates recently on his own blog. Interestingly one of the recommendations is a for-profit corporate representative he's financing (i.e. votes are dictated by the shareholders who purchase shares and individuals purchase the right to raise issues for attention). Fuck democracy, eh? Those recommendations have been flushed down the toilet at the back of my mind.

What about websites? Here the candidates differ significantly in campaign approach. Several put in some hours to create a website with a campaign message or platform summary. Others opened up brand new blogs - the less successful of that small group have not yet managed to post anything readable on them except one liners or the famous 1990's "under construction" style holder message. But overall, I'd have expected more from such a large group of motivated individuals seeking public office in Eve. A few shine brightly, but the majority vary between floating and drowning conditions so far. With the rest of April to go though, perhaps there's still that last mad dash to the finishing line when the will to get a campaign message communicated will spawn more will to do something.

For the present then, I've selected three individuals who have been most successful in convincing me they are worth voting for just from reading their blogs/websites/comments. Not to cast shadows, I'm sure the rest (or at least some of the rest) are quite illustrious on the forums, but since I rarely get the opportunity to partake in the forums I'll have to do some digging before they have a chance to overtake those three as my preferences.

In a world where political character asassination and exaggeration is performed every other day in full view of the media and where new age politicians are turning to blogs, Twitter, Youtube, and other points of content distribution, the CSM elections are a bit disappointing. I expected more spectacle but it's all falling rather flat at the moment. The will to dominate the election ticket just seems lacking a bit.

In any case, Crazy Kinux's latest blog update has a list of some resources worth visiting to gain information on the candidates. If they won't publicise themselves, there's always some someone willing to expose them more thoroughly ;):
The CSM, the Candidates and You!