Just to make it a totally overt reference.
We announced earlier this week that our cutoff day for interviews for the Council of Stellar Management 9 was on April 6th, and that day has arrived. Cap Stable is no longer doing candidate interviews for CSM9 candidates.
As I type these words, I feel like I still have more work to do. We managed to wrangle a total of 28 interviews this year, which is a good deal less than I had hoped to have acquired given the current number of candidates at 35 (although this number looks like it may increase by a few more people as the election approaches). A few candidates didn’t respond to our requests for an interview, one candidate outright declined to be interviewed, and a few additional candidates expressed interest but were unable to make an interview due to scheduling conflicts. Most distressingly for me, five of the 35 presently approved candidates did not make any formal announcements on the EVE Online forums prior to their names appearing on a post of approved candidates written by CCP Dolan on 04/04/2014.
After deliberations and several back-and-forth and flip-flops between the crew of Cap Stable, we have decided not to issue any collective recommendations or voting guides, but are going to allow the interviews to stand “as is.” This neutrality fits the intended purpose of the interviews.
I do hope that it became clear that the intended purpose of our interviews was to the best of our abilities get to learn a little bit about the candidates through a combination of disarming, difficult, and blunt questions. When I was drafting questions and interviewing candidates, I took inspiration from the The Nixon Interviews conducted by David Frost and by NPR’s Terry Gross. My own agenda was, when possible, to merely ask the sort of awkward and slightly impolite questions that no one else was asking and to see how the candidates would answer.
To this end, we were successful beyond what I had thought remotely possible. The interviews make for compelling audio more than I would have ever anticipated.
I’d like to extend the biggest of thanks to each and every one of the candidates who agreed to be interviewed by us. We enjoyed interviewing each and every one of you, and the process of working with all of you has been nothing short of incredible.
I’d like to also thank Stu, Lanc, and Kuda for tolerating my constant hysterical meltdowns and verbal abuse. The three of your have sacrificed more time and energy into this affair than any sane or reasonable person should have.
I end today humbled by the support we’ve received over this endeavor. It truly means the world to me. So to our listeners: thank you. I have ideas bouncing around in my head concerning the show, and I hope you’ll stick along for the ride.
In the meantime, regarding our CSM candidate interviews, this is Drewson “Hoots” Houten, signing out. Until next year.