A little…. abrupt? Paul and the team are of course entitled to do entirely what they want. But it seems to me to be a sure fire way of shooting oneself in the foot.

Why not just go quietly, if Whirlpool has annoyed you. Please don’t get me wrong, I maintain the highest respect for Paul and his team, but this blog can only do you further damage, rather than good.

Whirlpool sucks these days.

Full of bloody fruit cake whinging doll bludgers.

Good move warcom.

Good move guys!!!!

I’m surprised you have held such restraint with dickheads like that Pete Y guy constantly crapping on at you all.

It’s quite obviously the idiot is only interested in taking pot shots at you whenever he gets a chance or taking pot shots at the Draytek brand you guys sell.

These keyboard warriors think they are such top shit.

Best of luck with it all in the future, I will certainly still be buying from you and the same goes for the fellas I keep referring to you at work.

Not getting the customer’s from WP anymore that you once were Paul? I respect your decision, but geees, what a foot stamping ‘taking my bat and ball and going home’ display this blog is!

I’d like to make one point clear, rather than just letting people I respect (cafeman on whirlpool for one) making assumptions that are incorrect.

We’ve seen a spike in customers joining whirlpool, flaming us (or others) and only then making contact with comments like “look what we’ve done, we’ve bad mouthed you, now you fix it in front of the public”..

Given the fact these type of people’s sole purpose is to create a drama and to tarnish our rep, I 1.) have no interest in having publicly waged wars with people any more, and 2.) being held to ransom by customers, who think they can post whatever they want, stamp their feet and we’ll jump up and down in order to satisfy them.

We are in business to provide great service and prices, to great customers (people). I didn’t start warcom 10 years ago, so I had to come to work every day, to serve people sadly lacking in personal skills.

I started warcom so I could deal with my customers on a personal level, that we are known for. I started warcom so I could establish long standing relations and friendships (in some instances) with customers and service them, to the best of my ability.

I have absolutely no doubt, there will be a back lash from this, namely from those who think “the customer is always right” and the “customers can do whatever they like” brigade. That’s fine.

Whilst warcom remains a privately held company, I am going to stick to my guns, and aim all my efforts at our valued customers, who appreciate our personal service. The prices we offer and knowing that they can call me at any time, let me know if there is something wrong with their order and I’ll jump on it straight away and help them out..

If you are going to be rude and aggressive to my team or you believe you can stamp your feet, you are sadly mistaken.

Please take your business some place else. We’ve been here for 10+ years now. Our customer database is growing 10% monthly and I have no doubt, we’ll be around for another 10+ years, to continue to provide the personal service, we are known and respected for.

Sincerely,
Paul.

Whirlpool has become a bunch of wingers. If you have a complaint about a company you do not go and air it in public without first contacting the company to resolve the issue. Most of the currently active members on whirlpool seem to be extremely immature (with a few exceptions).

In my opinion, Paul has done the right thing. Getting support over at whirlpool was an added feature that has long been abused.

Sounds Great, now you can spend more time on what we all love. Warcom

Paul

I have to say I think it’s a retrograde step to withdraw from Whirlpool. You are letting the naysayers drive you out and that’s the very thing they want. You have always, it seems to me, gone out of your way to help people (many times with great effect). Unfortunately there are those who exist that think the world revolves around them and that you exist to service them solely. Whatever you do, they will find something to complain about – even if you should fix their problem at the first go it won’t be good enough (it shouldn’t have happened in the first place). if only everyone could be like them, perfect, there’d be no mistakes ever anywhere.

I think you should reconsider this unilateral withdrawal unless, as I’m starting to consider, the benefit derived from WP is far outweighed by the hassles?

There are plenty of benefits to contributing to whirlpool. I use to love contributing there. In all honesty, I still would like to be an active part of the community.

But my main point, which I’d like to repeat is this:

Whirlpool is not a support forum, for Warcom. We have no avenue of defending ourselves, we have no avenue of having defamative thread titles changed. We have no control over competitors and their ghost accounts sniping at us.

We have countless methods for you to contact us so we can assist you. And if we have fucked up, I’ll be the first to rip shreds of the warcom staff member who is at fault. This after all, is my job, it’s yours.

However the problem with this is, because we have a presence on whirlpool, certain ‘people’ think if they jump up and down enough, we will give them whatever they want.

It’s basically like a small child, screaming and carrying on for their parent. If the kid screams and carry on enough, their parent will give them what they want.

So in saying that, when I decide to have children, if my kids cry in order to get what they want, or yell or and I give in, then they know they can get away with it and they’ll keep doing it, until I take a stance, to stop them.

There is a process for everything and buckling to demanding, abusive, or crying kids needs is never a good thing. I certainly wouldn’t let my kids do it, once again (when I have them!). So we’ll I’ll be damned if I let some clown on a forum do it.

Paul

To take your child analogy to a conclusion – if they don’t stop whinging to get what they want are you going to abandon them?

You leaving Whirpool isn’t going to stop people whinging if you do something wrong. Look at the “On the Internet” forum at all the eBay whiners. Do eBay have a presence? No. Do the whiners still whine? Yes…

Maybe you should still contribute, just not as a representative of Warcom. Maybe you already do?

I’ve been a member of whirlpool for a bit over two years now, and I agree. It used to be a place where there was none of these trolling posts, these fanboys who just promote a product or company to the death. It’s still a goldmine of information but the amount of crap on there now is ridiculous.

I am wondering why I’m the only WP member to respond here using their WP id…

Is this some of what Paul is talking about? The petty purile WP complainants don’t seem to have the gumption to identify themselves here by their Wp username.

If this is so, that’s sad, because it lends weight to what Paul is saying.

I removed two personal attacks on me by Pete Y Testing, heisdeadjim, but that’s the only other whirlpooler who has posted here from what I can see.

I’m quite flattered that Pete would take the time to read my blog at 9:30 on a Thursday night and then spend his own time, to publicly announce it to the world on whirlpool….

Does someone have an Axe to grind?

If people can dislike someone that much, who they’ve never even met in person, then I’m incredibly humbled…. What a life you must have.

I stand corrected, Scorpio. Paul – you and I have spoken via private message before. I fail to understand the anger, that’s all?? Just ignore it? Part of the WP rules and regs state somewhere that WP isn’t anyone’s support channel anyway.

It just seems to me this cause of action gives the trolls succor.

Paul, it is sad that you feel you have to do this. Despite the trolls and PITAs that we live with, from time to time, on WP, I feel it is still an informative and useful forum – especially compared to other forums.

Like many others, I am sure, I enjoyed many of your posts on WP and will miss your input to the various threads I visit.

Perhaps one day you’ll have a change of heart?

/wiskas

I am sorry to see you & the team go Paul. I have been on both sides of the coin.

As a customer after you have exhausted all other avenues – then yes the Internet (& therefore WP) is a very powerful medium to get your point across. Hence I registered TPGSUCKS.COM posted on WP & bingo all of a sudden my issues were fixed.

As an experienced, (over 20 years), & highly qualified IT Consultant with vendor certifications & tertiary qualifications I have found, (like others have commented), that WP is now NOT the place for intelligent IT discussion.

In fact WP is in danger of dying if it continues to be over-run with kiddies, trolls, scammers/spammers & baiters.

All the best

I haven’t bought huge amounts of stuff from Warcom but I’ve used them on and off over the last few years (and I was pleased to see they’ve become a MacTalk sponser) but I’m an occasional customer and I’ve never had reason to complain about their service.

And my whirlpool ID number is 34100 (for those wondering why whirlpool users aren’t posting) so I’ve been on Whirlpool for a fair while now, so I guess I’m in as good a position as most people to comment about whirlpool.

IMO the signal to noise ratio has been getting worse for years and it seems like these days the mods are less and less likely to do anything about posts causing the noise.

And some of those teenage fanbois attack in groups!

It’s simply not enough to be right on whirlpool anymore (and from what I’ve read most times warcom were in the right), instead you have to have the biggest fanbois group supporting you to drown them out in numbers.

That isn’t my idea of how a well run forum works.

So yeah, stick to your guns Paul

Pity you guys pulled out, yes there are a few scumbags, they targetted MegaBuy.com with a load of rubbish too, but you take the good with the bad.

It is unfortunate a bunch of people here feel they should moan about Whirlpool, I am guessing most of them have never used it for more than a day and a half.

Warcom obviously feels Whirlpool plays an important role in the scheme of things, or it would not feel the need to make a big song and dance over its expeditious retreat from it.

For those of you who like to make up your own minds, feel free to come to Whirlpool and join the community and decide for yourselves exactly who is a whinger and who is not.

Oh don’t get me wrong Paul, I agree totally that when a few idiots purposefully target a company, or the odd person with unreasonable expectations creates a thread and attracts the nutjobs it requires lots of time to remedy that could be better spent addressing other aspects of the business. If I was running an online company, I would not spend too much time on public fora either.

I do wish you guys had not made a big drama out of it, you are giving the impression there is something wrong with Whirlpool, which I am sure is not the case since your reasons for discontinuing your presence are based on sound reasons.

I imagine we will still see you posting, and indeed I am sure Warcom customers will still seek you out via whims.

Whirlpool is a large community, there is still a solid body of IT professionals and industry players active and contributing. However it is a microcosm of the wider community, and a very broad church indeed, so naturally it has users of every type imaginable, which sadly includes the odd troll or two.

Part of the success of Whirlpool is it’s open nature, with transparent, fair and reasonable moderation. The benefits for companies like yours you know well mate, sadly there are downsides too. It is unfortunate the yahoos have spoilt things for your time management side of things, WP is poorer for not having your company visible.

I hope to catch you around the threads, and who knows, over time Warcom may slowly begin to interact with its customers on WP whilst staying under the rader of the lunatic squads that seem to target companies. As I said previously MegaBuy was the victim of a few of these recently, they are a small group, maybe half a dozen, but they fake usernames and work as a cohort, pretending to be customers and raising merry hell.

Every company has disgruntled customers, normally this is a one-on-one affair, WP as you know can be hectic if you get caught in the crossfire when someone voices issues in public, hopefully you guys will still be seen around the threads, I know a lot of your customers will miss you guys.

VenGanZa

Thanks for taking the time to participate in this discussion VenGanZa and everyone else, I do appreciate it.

I’ve actually disabled whims on whirlpool, so customers will need to pick up the phone or email me, if they wish to contact me. I’m here from 10/6 daily, and pretty approachable as I hope you can all see!

The move to leave Whirlpool was discussed in great depth before the decision was made, however there has been one detail which I have left out until now..

One of my team actually has Asperger syndrome. Now, whilst this person handles it incredibly well, I don’t expect him to cop abuse (and I do mean abuse) screaming, swearing, rudeness, from anyone. He’s here to help people, not deal with people with people, quite obvious suffering personality issues.

Whilst I would rather not point the finger, 100% of these people were coming from Whirlpool. And it was rising, daily.

This was also affecting several of the other guys in the team, who will also rename nameless. Staff moral was dropping, from Whirlpool – this is never a good thing.

My team come work, to have fun, to help customers, to solve customers problems, who are willing to be helped. Not to be sworn at, threatened, and abused.

I’ve kinda had enough of it too.

- Paul

nb: I know CS people need to be thick skinned, but there is a point where you can only be so ‘thick skinned’.

Quote: ‘Whirlpool fails because we’re not so easily pliable with money. – Simon Wright’

That is one of the most self humiliating quotes I have ever read… That guy would sell out in a minute if anyone would ever consider actually buying Whirlpool. Apart from actually building whirlpool, what has this guy ever done? He sits on his Benevolent Dictator thrown, where his army of 15 year old olds brown nose him. He has done absolutely nothing for the broadband community in Australia. As opposed to what James Rolfe of OCAU and Anthony Agius of Mactalk of have done for the PC Hardware and Mac scene.

“That guy would sell out in a minute if anyone would ever consider actually buying Whirlpool.”

Show me someone who wouldn’t sell a website if the offer was good enough, and I’ll show you a liar. That said, I’ve already turned down some serious offers; certainly more than you’ll ever earn in your adult life.

“He has done absolutely nothing for the broadband community in Australia. As opposed to what James Rolfe of OCAU and Anthony Agius of Mactalk of have done for the PC Hardware and Mac scene.”

I’m not sure you’d even get Agg or Anthony to agree with that.

I’m happy to remove Anonymous Mods comments if you wish Simon.

These attitudes have no place here are entirely the type of slagging matches that are in question.

For what it’s worth, I feel yourself Anthony and James have contributed an awful lot to your respect communities.

And also, for what it’s worth. Anthony and James, don’t do ‘special favors for sponsors’. Sponsors are exactly that, ‘they pay money to keep the communities going’.

Whilst I will concede that both communities are far more enjoyable to contribute to, I am sure if any sponsors crossed the line they would be spoken to.

“I’m happy to remove Anonymous Mods comments if you wish Simon.”

Excuse me sir, but either a comment is appropriate or it’s not. It’s a bit hypocritical to say those attitudes have no place here when it — like this and every other comment — is manually approved by you.

Simon, every comment is being approved manually to prevent people coming on here and blurting out insults at Whirlpool or Warcom.

And every comment is being manually approved to prevent exactly the type of people on your community, running amok on our blog.

nb: Jabiru – I agree, it’s trolling, hence I’m fine with it being removed. I’ve offered to remove the post.

wow all this over $20 !?!? geezeeee…
the one things is that WP can be your best friend or worst enemy, it’s a double edged sward.. one of the best example of success is internode and simon hacket, though he has hordes of fanbious ready to take up his defense…

oh btw, everyone bagging out WP as becoming a bad place, im not sure what your all on about, iv been on WP for over 10 years, and back then when there was the anonymous posting feature, things were so so so so much worse! in general alot of people have left IT and thus WP and the crowd wp now draws is the same smart arse highschool or uni students who leave their social skills at the proverbial door, if they really did have any. Having said that, you need a thik skin in this world now days and there are some really good people there too still though the ration is shrinking. I think its unfair attacking simon, coz, really im sure he dosnt like the fact so many twits use it to rant and do all that stuff, but whats he to do, that’s the beauty of the net, everyone has a voice no matter how stupid they are…

paul at the very least maintain an account on a personal , rather then professional level……… sad 2 c u go, but that’s life

Paul,

You approved Lucy’s comments? This is exactly the sort of thing you’re talking about leading you to leave WP.

Look, I’ve got to admit I rarely participate in technical areas any more because they’re full of numbnuts and tools but I still read up for info in areas, new tech etc that I’m unfamiliar with and I find WP to be without peer in educating myself in many technical areas (especially new hardware technology).

You need a certain skillset to filter out the numbnut posts to get to the truth but it can be done.

WP contains both the best and the worst. It’s not fun to participate in most of these areas any more but they’re still used as info sources by hundreds of thousands of people.

I can read between the lines as can anyone with a brain but you need a voice there to provide that info.

I understand the frustration. Obviously it’s reached critical because I’ve never seen you spit the dummy like this. Very un-Paulish.

Better to have never started on WP than start, then leave. It’s kind of a sticky situation.

Best of luck though.

Based on a number of you posts on WP over the last 3-6 months i must say there might indeed be wingers on Whirlpool, but that doesn’t excuse your recent attitude and arrogance Paul.

I can’t believe I’m saying that to someone I once thought of as a decent, level headed and helpful person.

Now a decent thing to do would be for both you to close this to comments and Simon to close the WP thread and just put this to bed and move on.
Commenting on the events will not achieve anything.

I sincerely wish you best of luck.

WP Veteran – you know that the person who runs whirlpool and the person who run Internode are two different people right?

Simon Hackett owns Internode.

Simon Wright owns Whirlpool.

yeah WP sucks:

Proudly giving a voice to the lazy and stupid since 2000

Do you guys have a reply to the comments on whirlpool that apparently you are doing this for link bait?

I’m employed by one of the largest SEO companies in Australia so I feel I’m fit to comment on the suggestion, which I find pretty funny I must add…

The purpose of link baiting, is to attract people to your website via links on other websites. Now I don’t want to point out the bleeding obvious, but the only link posted about this article is the one posted on the front page of warcom and the front page of this blog. So you’re only linking from one section of your site, to another section of your own site. lol

So in saying that I think Mr Wright needs to go and do some research on the topic. It might also be in his interests to sit back for a moment and take note of how much negativity there is about both him and his beloved website.

From what I read about him here — http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20090429-whirlpool-reaches-a-vortex.html — he’s an extremely young, 28 year old, sadly lacking in any people and business skills.

— J.

Just so there is absolutely zeroconfusion as to why this blog post is here..

I’ve posted this article, so that customers understand whirlpool is not a support medium for Warcom.

If you post a thread in relation to Warcom on whirlpool, it will not be answered by anyone from the Warcom team on the Whirlpool forums.

Equally, by not using the support contacts available to you as listed in the article, you may experience a delay in having your issue looked at it.

Are these comments being manually approved before they appear on the site?

Paul, I understand your business decision and reasons for deciding to no longer post on Whirlpool.

It can be difficult using someone else’s website, where you have no real control, to try and help your customers.

But why attack Whirlpool, it’s moderating team and the website owner in your post above? That just seems petty, childish and incredibly unprofessional.

It would have been more professional, to simply say “Warcom staff are no longer posting on Whirlpool, nor do we offer support through that channel, please use XXX channels to reach support. Thank you for your custom, and we look forward to continued business with you”,

This would have retained your dignity.

Your above post only served to lower the respect many people have for Warcom’s products and Staff.

From looking at this blog/thread, I can see that Paul has created his own version of WP right here. Very hypocritical to say the least.

It must also make you feel pretty special – whereas in reality you’re just some underachieving/unemployable bogan white trash home business in Roxbourgh Park with delusions of grandeur. I just looked up the address on Google Maps. Sad…..must be very sad to be a failure in life mate.

Can’t even afford office space…what are you on… 40k? lol

So far so good. I’ve had more time to work for warcom, rather than spending half the day on whirlpool OCAU is still good value… Yeah OCAU!

John raises some interesting points.

If you run a home business, that make you a white trash underachieving bogan? Wow.

I apologise on behalf of John to the millions of highly successful home based businesses operators reading this blog.

—

A bit about me though:

Warcom is privately owned by me, employs great people and makes a very nice profit each year, whilst maintaining consistent growth.

My other business: http://insiteful.com.au

Also privately owned by me, employs this bunch of dead sexy fellas — http://insiteful.com.au/meet-the-team.php (sexyness to be advised!)

And we’re going bang busters with this business too.

So I’m pretty happy where I am in life.

Thank you for your concern though