Rumors will not count, no matter how substantiated. A name resolves yes if there is a quote from the person saying describing themselves as practicing "polyamory", "ethical non-monogamy", or "relationship anarchy".
I may also count it if they are listed on Wikipedia's List of Polyamorists, which I expect to filter out gossip and only including notable people. But if Wikipedia does a poor job at this I might still require a direct quote to resolve a name yes.
It does not count if someone is "seeing multiple people", "taking a break", "in a situationship", etc without saying they are Poly/ENM. I will also not count "in an open marriage" or swinging. This is only for the newfangled kind of poly/ENM, and the connotations with those specific terms.
I'll N/A things on a case-by-case basis for quality control. Please try to submit plausible candidates, don't add someone and then immediately buy them down to 1%.
It's okay to add people after you find a quote that resolves to Yes though, if they are sufficiently famous that they'd be an interesting data point for the market. It needs to be a recent quote for those cases, though. It doesn't count if someone said they were poly 10 years ago and now they might not be.
Any self-identified poly/ENM people will resolve Yes, and everyone else will resolve No on January 1st 2026.
Related questions
@duck_master Lex often talks about how he's a vanilla, monogamous, traditional relationship sort of guy. (it's always the quiet ones though so 🍿)
@BrunoParga it's true there are books (The Ethical Slut but even much later Sex at Dawn etc) that were published and somewhat popular but it doesn't mean they represented any accepted or widely popular approach to relationships or sexuality. and I think it's inarguable that it's easier to self-identify as someone with a "less traditional" approach to relationships now than it was in previous generations, at least openly.
@shankypanky sure, I agree with all that.
I just think that the description of "newfangled" from Wiktionary applies pretty terribly to polyamory:
(usually derogatory, disapproving, or humorous) new and often needlessly novel or gratuitously different; recently devised or fashionable, especially when not an improvement.
I mean, if poly is "newfangled", what isn't? Divorce? Marrying for love?
Although it could well be that my non-native English speaker ass is reading too much into this.
@BrunoParga Ah, to be clear I just meant it humorously and not derogatorily, except perhaps as self-deprecation.
@Joshua I am sorry to inform you that 10 years ago was when Matrix, Fight Club and Star Wars Episode I came out, 1999, meaning 1997 was a few weeks, maybe months, before that.
@BrunoParga oh - I've never read a formal definition of newfangled it turns out, I only know it colloquially (which doesn't really have a negative connotation imo)
@shankypanky @Joshua speaking of poly books, if you're into this kind of sin and perversion of good costumes (like I am), I highly recommend the book Polysecure, which deals with attachment theory in a poly context.
@BrunoParga ah thanks for the rec - I've read excerpts from this I think (and I know a lot about attachment theory in general) so I'll look it up
@shankypanky oo I'll have to pick that up at some point too
@BrunoParga I think most of us native speakers almost always use "newfangled" as a joke. It has negative connotations, but we elide them to instead place those connotations on us as the speaker, implying that we're "out of touch" with the world around us.
@BrunoParga not sure if you're into podcasts like this (and it's really a shame about the recent press about Huberman's relationship dishonesty) but I'm listening to this one this morning and thought I'd share it with you since you were talking about books:
Dr. David Buss: How Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in Short & Long Term | Huberman Lab #48
@BrunoParga I read Polysecure thanks for the rec - nothing wildly groundbreaking ofc but definitely good coverage of Attachment Theory and emotional maturity in interrelationship.