With the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) Elections coming up soon we at EVE NT have contacted all the running candidates who have announced their intentions to run and provided them with a standardised interview template. The goal of this is to give each candidate a set of standard questions for them to respond to with the aim of helping you, the voter, to choose a candidate who best represents you and your play style to CCP. The same questions have been asked of every candidate as to allow easier comparison. The responses posted are unedited and will be published in the run up to the opening of the voting period on February the 29th in the order that they have been received. You can find out more about the CSM elections here.
Today's candidate is Erika Mizune.
 
Please start by giving us a short introduction to who you are and your history within EVE Online. Include how long you have been playing and the groups you have been involved with.
I started Eve originally in 2010 with my first account, however I never upped the account to a full account (Queue in newbie ignoring tutorial missions, undocking, getting killed, and then logging off). My current account was created in September 20th, 2011, so I am coming on 5 active years within Eve in the middle of the year.
I been involved with my current corp, The Soul Society, for roughly 3 years now. Starting out in high-sec which we then moved to transition to a renting alliance within nullsec. After a bit we grouped up with a few other corporations and DeepSpace was formed, which is now a Sov holding alliance for the past year now.
In addition to my current home, I have been also involved in multiple groups within my PvP character; starting out in Brave Collective with nullsec pvp, and to where she currently is, residing in low sec with Stay Frosty.
 
Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who you would best represent within the playerbase?
I feel I would best represent fellow industrialists within nullsec. I have lived in nullsec for almost three years as well (My corp took the move to nullsec not too long after I joined). Industrial is where the majority of my playtime is invested within.
In addition to representing other industrialists, I also represent the disabled players as an advocate for accessibility as someone who also has an impairment and understanding frustrations on limitations.
Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)
Industrial love, platform focuses on ?little things? that I'd like to personally see

• PI with less clicking - Faculty ?Plans? (Giving players the ability to create plans for building layouts to lay down groundwork)


• Industrial Notifications!


• Industrial Team Revisits


• Courier contract adjustments (seeing in cans inside[double wrapping], commas, etc)


• Accessibility Advocate


• Adjust the UI to make it more user friendly, and adding color blind features.


• Adding more features for fleet history viewer to use tabs to break apart different broadcasts - similar to the overview)

Keeping in mind players that come from different play styles and limitations when new features are implemented.
 
Why have you decided to run for CSM this year?
I am running because I want to be a voice and represent the community. The community has helped me more than I can say and I have made so many friends because of this game, and I want to give back.
Have you run for or been a member of CSM in the past? If so please list each year and if you were elected.
I have not been a member of the CSM before, but I have ran in the past during the 2015 elections for CSM 10.
 
What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?
I consider myself unique because I run under two aspects that aren't represented much; a focused industrial candidate, and as well as disability advocate for accessibility..
Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?
Out of game - I have been a supervisor, trainer, customer service representative, quality control, and freelance web developer. I am good at working as a team member, motivated, and am not afraid to voice my opinions.
 
What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?
While I can say that I have done a little bit of everything; I know we all have weak points within the game as well. I don't feel that I am very knowledgeable about incursions, as one part of the game as it's an area that I have only participated in a couple of times. My second weakness would be faction warfare, while it's not as low as incursions, I am still weak in knowledge.
 
If you were offered unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?
If I was offered unlimited development time, I would love to see Comet Mining. It's a topic that has been pretty popular within the ?features and ideas? section on the forums for a while, and something I feel would add a lot more options and activity for industrialists Comet Mining would also be an activity that you would not be able to just AFK in as the comets would be always moving and a site that would have to be scanned down via probes - so this would also add in a new site for exploration as well.
If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?
I don't know if this would be considered a ?feature? - however - if I could go back to change something back, I'd like to go back to change the UI and icons back to the old system. The reason for this is because of accessibility. The current icons and UI are not user friendly, especially to players who have vision impairments. It's also very hard to distinguish ships by the new ship icons as well.
I don't know if I would entirely change it back, but rather leave it in as a option to have the new UI/Icons or the old ones.
 
If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?
Joffy Aulx-Gao, Joffy is a great person who's caring, nice, and not only a great friend, but he also shares a platform revolving accessibility options for Eve. This is a platform that has never had any representation in before, and something that we both feel needs to be represented. In addition to accessibility, he is also a lowsec focused candidate and is extremely knowledgeable - lowsec also needs more candidates.
He is also like myself at being very passionate about the community and wants to give back to it; and he's very genuine.
 
What is your favourite memory in EVE and why?
It's hard to really just pick one favourite memory since there are so many to choose from. So if there was one that I had to pick from would be a memory from back in 2013 (I cheated and looked at KM for the date).
I was tuned into Eve Radio and Erroch was on air and putting together the industrial revolution. I have been wanting to take part of it for a while as it always looked like a lot of fun; going out there, undocking in industrial ships and killing people with them - or dying in a glorious ball of fine, whatever came first.
After a while of flying around and getting no fights, it was closing to the end of Erroch's show, so he said to set destination to ?Old Man Star? and off we went since he knew that we would get a fight there guaranteed.
We get to Old Man Star, and I could hear these loud pings and my name being spammed in corp chat since one of our directors got word that I was there from his pirate group. I was being told to get out of the system. That didn't work out ? by that time we were already being scouted out by the group 'soul Takers? who eventually found us as we were forming up on one of the planets and pretty much wiped out our industrial fleet.
I was laughing, it was a good run. After the fleet I learned more about the 'soul Takers? and how they were affiliated with 'the Soul Society? and hearing the directors sharing stories.
The Killmail
 
What platform(s) do you use currently to engage with the wider player base? If someone wanted to contact you what is the best way to do this? (Include Twitter/Emails/Skype/Slack etc.)
I consider myself very open to communication and willing to always talk to other players. The mediums that I use the most frequent are below.
Email: yumene@gamingradio.net
Skype: Yumenechan
Twitter: @djyumene
Slack: @djyumene
Ingame: Erika Mizune (Eve-Mail) / Erika4CSM (Channel)
 
If people wanted to find out more about your platform - where is the best place to do so? (Include blogs, forums posts and podcasts)
Eve Online Campaign
Eve Online Blog / Diary
Eve Radio (As DJ Yumene)
 
In short - what is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)
In closing, I want to thank you everyone for taking the time to read this, and I am looking for your support in letting me be one of the council representatives. I want to give back to the community and help give that voice to make things better and more accessible. If I am elected I will do my best, and I will work hard! ~ Erika Mizune