Polygamy (SL Style)

I don't know how many people it happens to in SL, nor do I care to find out. I do know, however, that it is practiced by a fair enough number of people that it should be made a viable option. I wouldn't think that it would require that much of a change in programming to allow it, nor a profile layout (Change the text bar to a drop down menu.) The only viable argument against such a thing I assume would come from an ethical standpoint, which we the inhabitants of this virtual world, I believe, do not bear the right to throw stones at one another...

It's been discussed before. I'm sure there's a vote for it too.
It eventually comes down to someone saying "Just use groups."

If I just wanted to use groups then there wouldn't be a point in having a partner feature. As for discussed before, I got a few hits when I did a search of Polygamy, but couldn't find more than a single mention of it.

rock the vote?

I think that's basically it.

Instead of a partner feature, they should have general attributes that you can add to your profile and (optionally) allow scripts to read, as in this thread. That gets LL out of the business of managing morality and opens up all kinds of new possibilities. Every virtual world I'd ever used back to the mid '80s when they were all text has had this kind of mechanism... why not SL?

Thats a bit more extreme of an edit than I'm seeking myself... One thing at a time I'd say, starting with the partner bar, lol...

Though if they did, they could put it in that ratings area... I mean, I have 1000+ ratings and even I don't care about it, lol.

The problem is that "one step at a time" would never carry you to the general soution... and every step will be a new fight.

I simply don't understand this extreme importance over formal recognition of individual interests in the profile. Linden Lab doesn't officially "recognize" partnerships - there's no verification process, no benefits that come with the title, nothing. It's just a small, insignificant box on a profile.

You have an about box, you have a web tab. I can't imagine you needing anything else? Complaining that it's a moral issue is making a big deal out of nothing. I could understand if married couples got stipend bonuses, cheaper land or lower tier fees, but they don't. In fact, technically, getting partnered in-game makes you worse-off because you lose money in the process and physically gain nothing. (I'm sure you can fire back arguments about emotional assets and this is true, but there are no QUANTIFIABLE benefits.)

Let me clarify this a little: This isn't only related to polygamy. I'm talking about declaration of gender and other things people have suggested as boxes in the profile. Linden Lab doesn't need to recognize your particular desire for you to carry it out. I could understand if there was a strict "no polygamy" rule, but there's not. They're not sweeping you under the rug or morally preventing you from doing something - the partners feature is one of the most useless on the game besides being an economic sink, why spend the time to expand it? Having it there gives the majority of the population the illusion that LL recognizes some sort of official "marriage" system, but in reality it serves no function. Simple as that. I think removing it would cause an uproar, otherwise I'd advise that as well. Regardless, the bottom line is that despite what you perceive to be a large demand (and I'll even give you a rather large figure, saying that maybe 5-8% of the game's population wants this,) considering the relative importance of the change and the number of people that want it, this is something that'll have to wait until more important things like the show-stopping lag, database issues and sim memory leaks are fixed.

This is something I never really thought about. But in a whirl of recent events, I suddenly find myself with two wonderful girls. I love both of them. We have a nice three way relationship, as in they love each other too. It's a surprising change, and if you had asked me a week ago, I would have said I could never love more than one woman.

I believe this is needed. The partners feature is not useless. It is a symbol of your relationship with a person. It is a declaration that you love them enough to tell the world about it.

It is the equivilant of wearing a wedding ring. An easy to read sign that a person is spoken for. There are people who don;t have the patience to glance at a profile for a second, but there are many people like myself who will read a persons profile first, and decide if and how toi approach them based on the information within.

Lag, database issues, and memory leaks are big issues. But this is not. The lindens are a diverse team, who work on a number of different aspect of SL simultaneously. They are multitalented, and not all have the knowledge and skill to work on these particular areas. There are lindens who work on side projects. Adding an expandable partner box, with space for...say 10 partners, is a relatively small and insignificant thing in terms of developer time, but a very important thing to residents.

I personally want to be able to add both my girls to my partner box.

I will allocate all my votes to it immediately ^_^

WarKirby Magojiro

"Adding an expandable partner box, with space for...say 10 partners, is a relatively small and insignificant thing in terms of developer time, but a very important thing to residents."

You're wrong on both counts. First, nobody really cares. I wound up doing a small study of second life players (unrelated, but attempting to link user interests to the style of their avatars) and out of the couple hundred I interviewed, only a handful (about a dozen) expressed interest in a serious in-game relationship, and less expressed interest in one with multiple partners. And without any understanding of how something works, it's nice to say a change is easy to make, but you have no evidence to back that up. Changes like that can take away a fair amount of much-needed time from other, -way- more important issues. Trust me, if it was a simple or important overhaul it might have been done when it was first suggested (they go back about as far as I remember.) The name of the game when catering to an estimated user base of two million people is thinking of how many people in-game are actually going to use the feature. Even if only 40-50,000 of those 2 million are active, I'd guess 5% or less have even the slightest desire for this. It'd be taking time away from useful features for the rest of us.

I'm sorry if I sound hostile, it's just that at this point I've been reading this suggestion over and over for about two years and nobody seems to get that it's just not feasible or worthwhile. It's not LL's job to validate the importance of your needs, wants or habits. You can do whatever you feel like, but you shouldn't expect LL to sanction it. That they offer a partner system at all, considering how they bill themselves as not an actual government, is kind of a stretch. We just need a longer about box, that sort of thing should be left up to residents. This sort of update is entirely about vanity and that's it.

Well I don't generally do "me too" posts, but just to counter that "nobody cares":

I think in an imaginary world, if you have a partnering system, limiting it to monogamous relationships is stupid. Either get rid of it altogether or remove the restriction.

The bottom line is:

The partnering system is there. There'd be a ridiculous and uncalled for uproar if it were removed. However, it serves no real function. There's no point in paying it any attention. That's it. I'd be all for removing it, but that would still take time away from other issues.

The about box is too small, and the web tab is useless to a lot of people (myself included) because SL doesn't support HTTP proxies... so nothing ever shows up in it. This was a real problem when they required us to accept the TOS a few weeks back - I had to use another computer and internet connection to see the new TOS so I could accept it!

To replace it with something NOT useless.

Me, I'd like to see a real improvement in capability here, which is why my proposal (in the other thread) is to give us the ability to add arbitrary (and, if selected by the user, script visible) boxes to the profile... AND to any other UUID-referencable object in-game, from prims to textures. They don't have to be large, and they don't have to take up much DB space, but they would add so much to the game *and* reduce the number of assets that need to be created in-game. Think about that... scripts could store their configuration in their attributes, rather than in separate notecards. Role-playing traits could be managed via attributes instead of having to have people carry around extra attachments.

This would simplify so much, reduce database load over time, and allow all kinds of new capabilities. PLUS it would get rid of all the complaints about "partners" in the forums.

All that aside, I disagree with this. If LL isn't going to allow people to partner in-game the way they want, they shouldn't have the "partner" box at all.

Don't get me wrong - I'm ALL for removing the partner box.

I just don't want to deal with the fallout.

A tag system seems a good idea, just not a mandatory one like was suggested in the initial tag thread (mandatory gender, etc, scannable by scripts. I don't like that.) The partner box, however, IS useless, and seeing it expanded any further would bother me.

I'd rather enjoy a taggable property system. But expanding the partner function is NOT something I want to see LL do.

"First, nobody really cares"

Firstly, this small study you did. Did you write up a report? Where did you find people to ask? And how do any of us know you're telliung the truth. Your sheer number of posts in this thread proves that you have a personal vendetta against the whole concept, and good reason to lie about your findings.

And Even if you did everything fairly, got an accurate cross section of society, and didn;t mess with the numbers at all. SL has a retention rate of 10%, publicly stated by Phillip Linden. Retention rate measured as the percentage of people who still log in once a week, three months after their account is created

SL's current signups is a 2.2 million. 10% of that, 220,000. Even if your rough estimate of 5% is true, that still leaves 11,000 people who care about multiple partnerships. The population of a small town all want this feature. Are you saying 11,000 people is nothing?

"And without any understanding of how something works, it's nice to say a change is easy to make, but you have no evidence to back that up. Changes like that can take away a fair amount of much-needed time from other, -way- more important issues."

The partners box, is a text box. It contains a string, That is all. No scripts interact with it. Nothing depends on it. It is a very reasonable and logical assumtion that it is easy to do. They managed to add a web tab just fine, which is FAR more complex. As for it using up valuable dev time, I said before, quoted straight from the lindens. They are a diverse team, and not all have the skills and knowledge to fix the problems that need fixing. Each has their own individual talents. This could be done by one of the Lindens who specialises in user interface. Or by an intern.

And stating that I have no understanding of how it works as an argument, also invalidates THIS:

"nobody seems to get that it's just not feasible"

What evidence is THAT based on? Or do rules about making assumptions only apply to others, and not yourself?

"This sort of update is entirely about vanity and that's it."

Indeed it is. I am making no attempt to deny that. And if SL did not allow free expression through vanity, it would be much less than it is. Much of the SL economy depends on vanity. People want to look good, so they buy nice things. Vanity is important, believe it or not. What is the point in a 3D avatar, if not vanity? As for the function of the partnering system, I already stated that in this quote:

"The partners feature is not useless. It is a symbol of your relationship with a person. It is a declaration that you love them enough to tell the world about it.

It is the equivilant of wearing a wedding ring. An easy to read sign that a person is spoken for. There are people who don;t have the patience to glance at a profile for a second, but there are many people like myself who will read a persons profile first, and decide if and how toi approach them based on the information within."

Because it's value is entirely emotional, does not make it worthless. THe single, and only point of this, is to allow people who live an unusual lifestyle to express themselves. And that, is point enough.

Love conquers all

WarKirby

Hi there

I'm a journalist writing a feature for a UK women's glossy called eve (we're like US Marie Claire - see www.evemagazine.co.uk) and am looking for a woman who is 'married' in SL. If this is you, could you spare a minute to tell me your story about what it's like being married in SL? Did you have a wedding?

I have been into SL but it's difficult for me to get access as we have such strict firewalls! Could I instead ask you to email me at [email]tanya.de-grunwald@haymarket.com[/email] as soon as possible?

Thank you so much!

Tanya

PS Feel free to post this enquiry somewhere more visible - I can't figure these forums out! Thank you! x