Whirlpool is an independent

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n website founded in 1998. Since then, it has grown significantly and has over 931,623 registered accounts. Primarily a discussion forum, some extra functionality such as Broadband Choice was included, although this functionality has been removed from the site.

History

Whirlpool began as a community resource for users of

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...

BigPond Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecom ...

cable Internet In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband internet access which uses the same infrastructure as cable television. Like digital subscriber line (DSL) and fiber to the premises, cable Internet ...

service, the name ''Whirlpool'' being a

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

of ''BigPond''. However, it soon expanded to cover

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...

' Optus@Home (now known as OptusNet) cable internet service,

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

-based services, and other forms of broadband

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non ...

s in Australia, as they became available.

2Clix controversy

On 11 September 2007, it was announced that 2Clix Software was commencing legal action against Whirlpool founder Simon Wright for posts made by users in the Whirlpool forums that 2Clix claimed were "false and malicious". 2Clix claimed it had lost approximately A$150,000 income per month between January and July 2007 and sued for that amount plus legal costs. Whirlpool users responded immediately by sending

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donations to assist with the site's legal costs, with some users claiming they had sent donations exceeding A$1,000. The co-founder of

PIPE Networks PIPE Networks (also known as PIPE) is an Australian telecommunications company, based in Brisbane, Queensland. It is a subsidiary of TPG Telecom. Its primary business is setting up peering exchanges. PIPE itself stands for "Public Internet Pe ...

personally pledged a donation of A$10,000 towards the cause. On 19 September 2007,

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

s for 2Clix stated that they had received instructions to discontinue the case. 2Clix entered

voluntary liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a Company (law), company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as :wikt:wind up#Noun, w ...

in late 2007 and its director was subsequently declared bankrupt.

Broadband Choice

Broadband Choice allowed a user to find options available to them and to filter them by features such as price, speed and usage limits. In most cases, details about

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

s (ISPs) and their plans were maintained by staff of each ISP, which were then editorially approved by Whirlpool. Broadband Choice was retired on 29 June 2015 with the link redirecting to a page outlining the reasons for closure.

Whirlpool forums

The primary purpose of the forums is to provide a venue in which to discuss broadband and related areas (such as networking). Representatives from many Australian service providers, hardware vendors and merchants use Whirlpool as a strictly non-official support and communication channel. Whirlpool uses custom forum software. Some features present on other message boards such as

signature A signature (; from , "to sign") is a depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. Signatures are often, but not always, Handwriting, handwritt ...

avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

s and in-line images are not provided. When threads and posts are deleted or moved, placeholders are left allowing users to see the alleged moderation that has occurred. This is different from other common forum software where deleted material may simply disappear from view. The forum also has areas for discussing more general topics, known as "lounges". Some of them are only available to long-standing or highly active members of the community.

Knowledge base

Whirlpool has its own

Wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

. It is an accumulation of information put together by forum users in "sticky threads" over time, with the hope of cutting down forum clutter, while also allowing more collaborative content development. It includes information that is difficult to find aggregated in one place elsewhere, such as the Australian Exchange Guide (a guide to the locations of Australian telephone exchanges), a list of Australian computer shops and a list of Australian VoIP providers.

History

Simon Wright, as founder and main developer, developed the site in

CFML ColdFusion Markup Language, more commonly known as CFML, is a scripting language for web development that runs on the Java virtual machine (JVM), the .NET framework, and Google App Engine. Several commercial and free and open-source software imp ...

. Phil Sweeney assists by writing news and by keeping ''Broadband Choice'' updated, when it was online. Previously, Whirlpool existed with no revenue stream. Unlike many forums, Whirlpool had no banners or paid advertising. However, in 2008, the owner began using

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These adver ...

in pages that result from Google searches, for users who are not logged in. Most day-to-day administrative tasks are conducted by a team of unpaid volunteer members, who have been given varying degrees of

moderation Moderation is the process or trait of eliminating, lessening, or avoiding extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include: * A way of life emphasizing perfect amo ...

privileges in the forums.

Awards

In its first few years, Whirlpool was nominated for several awards: *''Best Technology Media Website'', IT Journalism Awards **Nominated, 2003 **Winner, 2004 **Winner, 2005 **Finalist, 2006 *''Best Technology Title'', IT Journalism Awards **Winner, 2004

References

External links

*{{Official website Internet properties established in 1998 Australian social networking websites Internet forums

History

2Clix controversy

Broadband Choice

Whirlpool forums

Knowledge base

History

Awards

See also

References

External links