[S] Life Mating Agreements

[Faithofthefallen]

My Question:

In regards to some of the information presented in the new breeding agreements thread, I first off want to make sure I am interpreting this section right.

Broken Lifematings

Require the posted agreement of both owners in order to be dissolved. Please be aware that if one party member does not agree to break the lifemating, there is nothing we as staff can do about it. It is an all or nothing deal, and needs to be worked out between the owners. We as staff will not play Divorce Court.

If all owners do not consent to the (broken) lifemating, it will not go through, regardless of the arguments presented. This is the risk you take by lifemating a soquili.

taken from here

What I am understanding from this new thread is that Lifematings are now absolutely binding unless all owners involved have agreed to break the lifemating and that the option of terminating an agreement due to inactive/MIA owners is no longer an option for a single owner. This seems pretty straightforward from looking at the lifemate guidelines listed in the new thread but please correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong!

Just want to Clarify that this question HAS been answered by Uta and DD, thanks you guys! Nothing has changed between the old thread and the new, its just been worded a little differently ^-^

My Opinion:

While I completely understand where the staff is coming from with not wanting to mediate squabbles between owners about whether to break lifemating agreements, I do think that there is a lot of grey area being overlooked with this setup. One or more owners could become inactive, god forbid something happens to one or the other in RL, or, despite the very best intentions, things just don't work out for one reason or another. I think that there should be some allowance for these cases.

It made me feel secure that there was a loophole option for ending the breeding agreement on your own in the previous thread. Now that LM agreements are going to be more iron clad (at least my perception of them) I am worried that it will inject a lot of unwanted negativity in the lifemating system. If owners are capable of holding each other against their will in an agreement (not saying anyone would but it seems to be possible now), I believe it opens the door for simple squabbling to develop into something more toxic. By no means do I think this a common problem( In all honesty I really haven't seen that many LM agreements broken in all of the years I have been involved in soquili) and it is not something I myself have experienced, but it has come up in the past and I think that we could perhaps find some way to treat everyone fairly when these situations do arise.

See, I have always looked at life mating vs. flinging from a plot perspective when choosing a route for my Soquili. I take into account their personalities and try to decide if they are more of the 'love of a lifetime/marriage' type, the 'one night stand' type, or a mixture of the two. I've never thought of it the way it is being presented now, like a risk you take by trusting the other owner to cooperate with your wishes. I'm not even sure that is how it is intended but that's how my mind reads this and it makes me really hesitant to enter this sort of thing. Because, in all honesty, who knows what will be going on with people next year, or the year after that, or however long it takes to get a breeding slot, if they will even be interested in RPing anymore and if you still are, what then? Are your plots just forever frozen in time? I myself was virtually inactive for almost six months this year because of RL issues, stuff happens!

My suggestion:

To avoid putting the staff in the middle as 'divorce lawyers' and to still allow people to maintain control of their own soquili, I think it could be a good idea to allow owners the option of outlining the terms of their lifemating up front when they first make the agreement, very similar to how co ownership agreements are set up now. They would be more like contracts instead of a simple yes or no and people would know exactly what they were agreeing to with the other owner.

If one party breaks their part of the contract, say by not being online or even just active in soquili for X amount of time, the other party can take steps to end the agreement. Not sure what those steps would be. If people wanted to opt out of it, then they would simply require all owners posted permission to end the agreement as the default.

I know lifemating is intended to be serious business so the staff will no doubt want these stipulations to address things more serious than "if 'X' gets tired of plotting with 'Y' the lifemating agreement can be ended by 'X' on their own, but it could address issues like activeness, ability to contact each other, and other things that I honestly can't pull out of my head at this moment -- would love to hear suggestions! I think this would actually decrease the amount of broken lifematings because owners would know exactly what they are expecting from each other when they make the agreement.

To close:

I hesitated to bring this up in here because I have seen some of these threads go very wrong and I just want to open an honest, civil discussion about this topic.
I am very interested in hearing peoples ideas and opinions. Perhaps some more information from the staff as well?

Please keep conversation constructive, on topic, and as impersonal as possible. I don't want anybody making personal attacks!  

[That Artemis]

Or make it non-retroactive, so every agreement from here on out must follow that rule but not the ones before it. Since, this definitely makes me think twice about agreeing to a LM. Not that I don't trust people, but what if someone disappears? I consider a LM a very important part of a soq's plots so to have an inactive LM or one that is unwilling/unavailable/difficult to get to at least plot with is very difficult to rp around. It's like having a stone tied around your neck rp wise and is the only reason I have ever broken a LM agreement.

edit: Also, I'd be fine if it was just say, increasing the amount of time it takes for a soq to be able to breed again.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

I, for one, doubt that I will enter anymore lifematings unless I'm allowed to put in my own terms--- which would be the following statement at the time of agreeance.

I agree that either owner can break the lifemate agreement at any time without the other's consent, I acknowledge and accept these terms of agreement.

My reasoning: I don't want to get stuck if someone leaves gaia or doesn't have time to RP anymore. I realize this might be a special circumstance to the rule, but it's written as an absolute, and I don't want to be stuck never being able to have my pony breed because someone left gaia and didn't say anything.  

[Kamiki]

I could be wrong -but wasn't this always the case? I think the expanded on it / clarified it a bit, but breaking lifematings always had to be agreed upon by both owners, unless one of the owners was MIA.

Again, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've run into this before with a LM of my own.  

[CheshireKttty]

I actually read this yesterday, and found myself being upset by it. I find it a little unfair for the old LM agreements to be held to this standard as they were created prior to this. Also, if someone left gaia but you had to keep the LM and had no way to get a hold of them, how would a breeding work? Would you just be unable to breed your soquili any longer? Would you get total control over the baskets? How would this effect plots? etc.

Unless a change is made I won't be LMing anymore. The bonus to basket chances are nice as are the potential slots. However it's not worth the risk anymore. The cooldown was enough to discourage breaking LMs to begin with. I MIGHT LM with someone I know I can contact IRL (phone/etc) but that would be it. Only because I've seen too many people vanish without a trace or just aren't able to contact them anymore. I'd rather just keep the soquili together and do 3 'flings'.  

[CheshireKttty]

Kamiki

I could be wrong -but wasn't this always the case? I think the expanded on it / clarified it a bit, but breaking lifematings always had to be agreed upon by both owners, unless one of the owners was MIA.

Again, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've run into this before with a LM of my own.

I believe it was pretty similiar to that. However this says there aren't any exceptions. So it makes it sound as if even if the person goes completely MIA you're just stuck. :/  

[That Artemis]

Kamiki

I could be wrong -but wasn't this always the case? I think the expanded on it / clarified it a bit, but breaking lifematings always had to be agreed upon by both owners, unless one of the owners was MIA.

Again, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've run into this before with a LM of my own.

I was always under the impression that you could break a LM without the other owner's consent if there were extenuating circumstances? I could be wrong though.

As I see Chesh has said though, I'm sure there were/have been exceptions made and this new wording makes it ironclad in a way I'm unhappy with.  

[Kamiki]

The original LM thread said this:

Cajmera

• Require the posted agreement of both owners in order to be dissolved (although either owner may revoke the open breeding permission at any time) Exception: See MIA Owner, below.

• In the case of MIA owners, after three months their unclaimed basket will be homed by the shop unless the inactive owner has given permission for the active owner to make all basket decisions.
• In the case of MIA owners, after three months of inability to contact or not logging in, the active owner can choose to break the Lifemating themselves.

~~~
Names/owners/Date of lifemating confirmation/Page confirmed/breedings/attempts (in months) since last breeding

As you can see, it also required BOTH parties give permission to be dissolved, unless one owner was MIA.

In the new thread, in the Broken Lifematings post, they still say you can present your case to Uta if the owner is MIA to force a breaking: ]http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?page=1&t=23696151#351433789

Uta

Broken lifematings...
• Are Soquili that were formally posted as lifemates but are have since drifted apart (for whatever reason).
• Are banned from breeding (bribes, rl, or Gaia) for six months of breeding events. The ban does not officially begin until the day that all parties have posted their accordance.
• There is a 3 month cool down period only if a lifemating is broken due to Owner Inactivity. To qualify for such a thing, the active owner needs to explain their case. If Uta does research and confirms the other owner is indeed seemingly MIA, the lifemating breaking will go through.
• The person posting the agreement does not get to say when the soquili's breeding ban is up. The six (or in some cases three) month ban will not officially begin until every last owner or co-owner has posted their consent.
• If all owners do not consent to the lifemating, it will not go through, regardless of the arguments presented. This is the risk you take by lifemating a soquili.

 

[JetAlmeara]

Nyx Queen of Darkness

I, for one, doubt that I will enter anymore lifematings unless I'm allowed to put in my own terms--- which would be the following statement at the time of agreeance.

I agree that either owner can break the lifemate agreement at any time without the other's consent, I acknowledge and accept these terms of agreement.

My reasoning: I don't want to get stuck if someone leaves gaia or doesn't have time to RP anymore. I realize this might be a special circumstance to the rule, but it's written as an absolute, and I don't want to be stuck never being able to have my pony breed because someone left gaia and didn't say anything.

^ this. I too doubt I'll be entering to many more lifemates unless its with someone I completely know and trust AND can get a hold of IRL in case something DOES go wrong  

[Elf Princess Flannery]

If one person no longer wants their soq to be with another person's soq why should we stop them from leaving? it takes two for a relationship to work and if one person wants out then it should be done. I didn't realize life mating was so restricting.
i mean obviously the other person should know if their partner no longer wants to remain in the lifemate. but you should be able to keep that partner happy with the agreement by being active in rp. If i want my soq out of the agreement, but the partner doesnt, either we need to work something out or its just not going to work at all. you cant keep someone in a relationship they dont want to be in. If they want to leave, it would probably be because the other person made them unhappy or was inactive. if your husband/wife disappeared for a long period of time or refused to interact with you i think that would be reason enough for a separation.  

[[.Silvr-Moon.]]

Just to briefly add in, in another shop that I also frequent, if a lifemating agreement is broken, there is a breeding cool down period of 6 months for both pets involved. Something severe like this might also make it a big 'punishment' for breaking it, yet something that isn't impossible for the owner's to deal with as they can still move on and be able to continue with breedings and plots again. :3  

[HyperCandy Loli]

I am going to confirm it is like having a stone tied around your neck.
This is gaia, not IRL. In the B/C section it's supposed to be fun, you buy/obtain pets for 'yourself' to make a life for them as you please, or to do what you want with them. Not say oh, actually you can't break it regardless of how you feel, if you don't get on with the other owner anymore, don't want your pet to be with that one, ect.

I also agree that the breeding ban is punishment enough and that it should honestly be up to one owner, if they don't want it to be anymore, why should anyone get in the way of that? It's their choice to make. Theres obviously reasoning behind it.

The other owner would have to be notified, even quoted in the breaking of the LM to show staff that they at least know that the couple has been broken.

It isn't right to corner owners. Make them feel pushed to one side, that they dont have control over there pet anymore because of some silly, overly strict rules which are extremely above the belt. What happened to compromise? Actually trying to make the customers happy so that they can fully enjoy there time at your shop. Well, this isn't one of the things that allows such to happen. It makes people feel uncomfortable and what has been stated before, upset.

In my current situation, it has bothered my RL life too. Affected my moods, always having to check to see if somethings actually happened to help plead my case only to find that nothing has come of it other than being treated as a pest and find that the rules have been 'clarified' in another thread to make it more strict as if it's rubbing it right back in my face. Things like this become personal, break friendships, stir up more trouble than needs to be and now I can say that from experience. Something needs to be done.  

[Faithofthefallen]

The 6 month breeding ban would be enough to make me think long and hard about ending a lifemating agreement and take a moment to really think before I make the agreement in the first place. When you're looking for a lifemate, especially if you're looking to fill specific plots and important points in your Soq's life, you want someone in it for the long haul.

I feel like with this system, someone could potentially agree to the level of rp commitment and follow through until you quote the life mating and then stop once they have you stuck in it and simply refuse to end it. Even if it is not done on purpose to take advantage, it happens on accident all the time! I can't see someone doing that intentionally, but again, with these restrictions it seems possible now and it really could be crippling plot wise. That's no fun and I think it takes away from the excitement of breeding your pet.

I think another question I have is what is the current definition of MIA? When is it acceptable to call the other owner MIA? If they have logged on every day but haven't replied to you or posted in soquili does that count? If they haven't replied to you or responded to you reaching out in X amount of time? Maybe it would help to clarify that a bit more? Because someone who is very active and wants rp all the time is going to have a very different definition of a MIA lifemate than someone who just plots casually or not at all.

A have to agree with Chesh that it sort of made my stomach flip reading this yesterday. I have absolutely nothing against anyone I have agreements with but this is not what I understood when I made previous LM agreements and I'm not sure if I would have made the same choices if this current wording was used. Looking back and knowing the owners as I do now, yes, but in the moment I made the agreement, probably not. I would have had to take time to get the owner as much as learning about their Soquili before I would feel comfortable with it. --I hope that makes sense ^-^;

Kamiki- I know it was the case that both owners had to agree on it and while part of me understands what the staff were trying to do with it, I still think it might not be entirely realistic with how unexpectedly things can change. Which is why I thought changing the form a bit might help. I don't necessarily agree that a MIA owner is the only legitimate reason to end a LMing.

But even that could be put into a new form as a clause in the agreement. One owner could say that they will only LM their Soquili if both owners agree that it will require everyone's permission to end the agreement. If the other owner is Ok with that, fine, if not, then they probably should find someone else to LM with. I hope I'm explaining my thought in the right way....  

[Ktns]

I agree. I think the 6month cool down is enough of a penalty over pixel horses. Things happen and people part ways or people leave Gaia. Its not fair to ball-and-chain people as if they should or would have control over someone else via the internet.