drochaid

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree very strongly with the above. You do not choose to be homosexual, or hetero, or bi .. you just are. Discrimination on the basis of facts you have no control over must be condemned outright. To ridicule a person for their CHOICE of political, animal welfare, religious views is absolutely separate and choice must always be open to debate. You certainly have the right to request that debate not to be openly offensive, but this is absolutely not the same in any way, shape or form as open hostility to a group of people who do not have the choice to be anything else.

I have a degree in Computer Studies (*not* computer science.. covered software engineering rather than programming, SAD, CT and an emphasis on business/maths/psychology) and am currently working toward a degree in psychology. What areas of research did you study and have been involved in lately?

..that would appear to be somewhat more relevant for you then

You'll note I said "almost everything" and not "everything"... My papers don't have enough figures to care about the wordcounts, so I didn't bother to mention it.

They do for every paper I've ever written ... the title doesn't, the references don't, the appendices don't, almost everything else generally does. But perhaps you should check with your prof. so you're not guessing?

Unless they're collecting it in the now standard UK form of charging to send you an sms once a week which costs you £4.50 to receive.. this is how most cell based subscription services work over here, and while I'm mentioning it only as a possibility, the fact shadowfierce received instruction to sms "STOP" to a short code number suggests this is the way they're charging.

I think the thread would need to be clearly stated as an ethics discussion for that to be the case. The question was "Is boycotting blackmail?" rather than "Should boycotting be blackmail?". I'm responding on the basis of the question being "Is" and in that regard the legal definition is entirely relevant as it has been discussed and decided upon by a considerable number of people and those people, in different countries, have largely come to the same conclusion. In response to gcol pointing out that legality is "man-made and subject to political whim" well, yes, clearly, as is this discussion man-made and subject to personal whim.. that's rather the point, isn't it?

It would seem I wasn't clear enough in my last post. The three definitions I provided are from the Oxford English Dictionary whereas I suspect your quotes were from one of the lesser variants, such as the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. As ParanoiA pointed out, the second definition you provided is incredibly woolly and entirely unhelpful.. no doubt why it does not exist in the real OED. Boycotting is not blackmail .. it just isn't .. if it were, every company every boycotted would very quickly resort to legal action against the boycotters as blackmail is a criminal offence in most western countries.

I've just logged into the Oxford English Dictionary, and that second definition is not present. But regardless, it's not blackmail by any reasonable definition of the word and certainly not by the legal definition. 1. Hist. A tribute formerly exacted from farmers and small owners in the border counties of England and Scotland, and along the Highland border, by freebooting chiefs, in return for protection or immunity from plunder. 2. By extension: Any payment extorted by intimidation or pressure, or levied by unprincipled officials, critics, journalists, etc. upon those whom they have it in their power to help or injure. Now usu. a payment extorted by threats or pressure, esp. by threatening to reveal a discreditable secret; the action of extorting such a payment. Also fig. 3. Law. Rent reserved in labour, produce, etc., as distinguished from ‘white rents,’ which were reserved in ‘white money’ or silver. Obs. (Coke's and Blackstone's explanation of redditus nigri, which Camden appears to have taken for rents in ‘black money’ or copper.)

The free market allows us to decide where we shop. Whether that is based on price, quality or any other considerations including ethical is entirely up to the individual consumer. Boycotts are calls for people not to shop with company X in order to send a message that their actions are considered unacceptable. The individual consumer chooses whether or not to join the boycott. The company chooses whether or not to alter its actions as a result of the boycott. I therefore can see no possible way that it could be considered blackmail. Companies survive by changing in order to meet the needs of their customers .. a boycott is simply one very strong way of telling them what needs to change.

That's ridiculously expensive for sms.

Was this a double blind test?

It would have been more gracious of you to post in a relevant area of the forum, provide reasonable information and a sensible question in the first place. You did not and you continue along the same path regardless of the number of people who have all basically said the same as me albeit in shorter form. I have provided you with considerable information which may benefit you greatly were you to ignore my irritation with your posts and pay attention to the content instead. You have shown no aspect of doing so. Had any people offering to help yet?

I had many points, capn... he missed every single one of them. Uh no, you said you had a business model. This is absolutely nothing to do with a business plan. You really are not helping yourself here.

No, that is not all "your" man (used in the sense of human and therefore not gender specific) needs before they know if they are interested. You are asking people to go out of their way and use their own time without even the most basic background info on the vertical market you intend to target, the operating environment the project will require to run in, the development environment you prefer them to use or the level of experience you require them to have. I have designed systems from small single user, through web applications to large multi-tier client server distributed applications serving tens of thousands of users. I am skilled in various methodologies from basic waterfall to SSADM to Agile with good knowledge of project management methodologies. I am a professional member of the British Computer Society and at the point of typing this, am the vice chairman of the Glasgow and West Coast of Scotland BCS branch. So when I say more info is needed, I do have a fairly good background to be able to mean that more info is needed. From all those projects one thing is very clear.. you would be an absolute nightmare to work with. If you have so little knowledge of computing project life cycles that you believe what you've typed, I see change after change after change during the dev cycle. Each and every one adding time, cost and frustration to your developers.. yes, plural, you almost certainly need more than one unless your idea is so simple it's surprising no one has thought of it before.. at which point, they probably will have. If you are serious, then get a clue. Research the market, build a business plan around your idea and source funding to develop it properly. Sadly your question was based on such a simple premise of law, I can't believe you didn't know the answer... so I have little confidence in your ability to succeed. And please please please learn how to spell. Trying to convince people to give you large quantities of their time when you are incapable of spelling even basic words correctly is not going to gain the confidence of the sort of skilled software engineers you will unquestionably need.