Talk:Whisper (app)

COI

• InternetUser25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The glowing tone of this article makes it appear to be a PR puff piece. The single purpose account that created this article appears to be a throw away sock puppet -- the type commonly used by Wikipedia paid editing agencies. I have tagged the article for COI and that tag should remain until cleanup is completed (and the article should not appear on T:DYK until cleanup is finished). I am not going to volunteer my time to clean up a paid article, but other editors who feel more generous are welcome to do so. Jehochman ^Talk 14:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, please see my lengthy response at following link. I'm no throwaway sock puppet; I'm a very real nerd with a lot of time on his hands who decided to create and fill out an article about an app that I've been seeing get coverage in a large number of mainstream news publications. I'll be glad to answer whatever questions you have! See more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:InternetUser25#COI_editing

InternetUser25 (talk) 16:07, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

After some rewriting and better sources, we now have a reasonably encyclopedic article. If anyone has a problem with that, please discuss on talk. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Please discuss deletions on talk

There have been a number of questionable deletions to this article recently. Please discuss on talk before removing anything big. Thanks. --John Nagle (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Claimed non-profit organization

Whisper LLC claims to have a non-profit organization, "Your Voice". Whisper (app)#Your_Voice. But there's no such organization in the IRS tax-exempt organization list[1] or in GuideStar.[2] The phone number given on their web page (1-800-273-TALK) is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. They have a contact form on their web site (which, amusingly, requires you to agree to a nonexistent EULA). That seems to be the only actual service they provide. Unless someone provides a WP:RS reliable source indicating that this organization has some existence beyond a web page, the article will be updated to reflect this. --John Nagle (talk) 18:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Nobody has provided any reliable information about activities or existence of "Your Voice" as a separate organization, so the above information has been incorporated into the article. --John Nagle (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Fees

Someone noted that WhisperText no longer charges a fee to send messages. WhisperText's FAQ says "Some users may be concerned that they are paying for messaging. Worry not, paid messaging is something that we require to certain users for certain reasons. We have paid messenger in place to protect our users from Trolls & spam that occurs in the app on a daily basis. ... As long are you follow the whisper community guidelines at (www.whisper.sh/privacy), you will NEVER have to pay for private messaging!" So some users pay, and some don't. Article updated accordingly. (That ends their main revenue stream. Any reports of where the money is coming from now? Ads?) --John Nagle (talk) 17:47, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"Gratis"

Calling Whisper "gratis" rather than "free" seems like a WP:COATRACK about the supposed distinction between "gratis" and "free."

There are WP:RSs that call Whisper "free," but I can't find any sources (in English) that refer to it as "gratis." In fact, the WP page for Gratis doesn't have any sources and might be a candidate for deletion.

Unless somebody can find a WP:RS that specifically refers to Whisper as "gratis" (in English, not Dutch or German), we should change it back to "free". Can somebody find one? --Nbauman (talk) 17:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I changed it to "free". I also removed "anonymous" from the lede, which, given the recent disclosures, it is not. --John Nagle (talk) 19:16, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the good intentions, but I have reverted your edit, because Whisper is not free software. It is gratis software. Let's have an accurate, unambiguous article, please. If ever there was an encyclopedia that ought to be attentive to this substantial difference, Wikipedia is it. For further corroboration, cf. Jimbo: here he is explaining that in the context of Wikipedia, "free" implies libre primarily and gratis only secondarily - which implication is obviously inappropriate for Whisper - and should perhaps be avoided unless describing something that is at least libre and preferably also gratis, e.g. Wikipedia itself. (N.B. For the reason I reverted the rest of the edit too, and not just that adjective, please see the edit comment. Thanks again.) zazpot (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Where is a WP:RS that says Whisper is "gratis"? If you don't have a WP:RS, then what's your basis for saying that it's gratis? --Nbauman (talk) 03:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:RS now provided for both the Android and iOS versions of the app. zazpot (talk) 12:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Searching Google for "gratis software", I'm getting mostly Dutch sites. Even asking for English results only returns text in Dutch. Not seeing any results which contain both "whisper" and "gratis", refer to the app, and aren't taken from Wikipedia. It's doesn't seem to be a common term in English. It's more of a Richard Stallman thing. John Nagle (talk) 03:58, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Please follow the links in my earlier comment; thanks! In any case, you don't need to find any such search results, because "gratis" is an English word and the references show, and the context is such, that it is an entirely appropriate word to use in this case. Moreover, it is a more appropriate word to use here than "free", because "free" is ambiguous in the context of software and has a meaning that in the case of Whisper is incorrect. zazpot (talk) 12:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, I followed the links to your comments. I can't find any reference in English to Whisper as "gratis." If you can't find a WP:RS that describes it as "gratis," you can't call it gratis, just as you can't call it "free" if you can't find a WP:RS that describes it as "free." The OED doesn't say anything about Whisper. That's your interpretation, which is WP:OR. If it is true that Stallman makes that distinction, it's an interestign point that belongs on Stallman's page, but to raise that discussion on this page where no WP:RS has raised it with regard to Whisper is WP:COATRACK.

I'm not reverting it now, because I want to give you the courtesy of a reply, but the consensus is against you. If we change it by consensus, I hope you won't get into a revert war. --Nbauman (talk) 18:26, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for following the links! One good turn deserves another, so I'll address the points you've raised :)

You assert that, 'If you can't find a WP:RS that describes it as "gratis," you can't call it gratis', which is, I'm afraid, false (and possibly wikilawyering). If, however, you had said, 'If you can't find a WP:RS that describes it as gratis, you can't call it gratis', then you would have been correct :)

In other words, you appear to have committed - innocently enough, I'm sure! - the linguistic or logical error of confusing tokens with denotations. The denotation in the Google Play and iTunes Store links matches exactly the denotation of 'gratis'. The point of WP:OR is about semantics, and so there is no case to answer here: there is no original research, simply a description in natural language that is directly supported by the cited source. To quote WP:OR (emphasis added), "Articles should be written in your own words while substantially retaining the meaning of the source material."

That is the heart of the matter addressed; what follows is relatively incidental.

You say, 'The OED doesn't say anything about Whisper.' Indeed, and no-one here has claimed that it does! However, it does provide a definition of 'gratis', which you can see - from its definition - is an adjective that correctly describes the Whisper app, w.r.t the financial cost of installing the app, as per the app's Google Play and iTunes Store links. I don't know how familiar you are with natural language dictionaries such as the OED, but your apparent surprise that the OED does not mention Whisper suggests that an explanation is appropriate. The purpose of such dictionaries is to record appropriate usages of words from the relevant language(s), supported by historical examples, for two main purposes: so that people who are reading or listening may look up unfamiliar words to find out what they mean and whether they have been used correctly; and so that people who are writing or speaking may ensure that their choice of words is suitable for conveying the appropriate message. To be clear, using a dictionary for these purposes is merely good literate practice; it does not generally constitute original research!

You say, 'If it is true that Stallman makes that distinction, it's an interestign [sic] point that belongs on Stallman's page'. I neither agree nor disagree with this assertion, but it is irrelevant to the Whisper article and it seems inappropriate to raise in a reply to me, given that I have said nothing to prompt it. Perhaps you confused me with John Nagle, who mentioned Stallman above? If so, no hard feeelings.

You say, 'to raise [the free/gratis distinction] where no WP:RS has raised it with regard to Whisper is WP:COATRACK'. That assertion is out of place here and might possibly be a violation of WP:GF. As I made clear, my concern about the use of the word 'free' to describe the Whisper software is simply that in the context, it was an ambiguous adjective at best and a misleading adjective at worst. That being so, I did what any conscientious English Wikipedia editor who spotted such a problem would have done, and replaced the problematic English word with the most appropriate English word (with a wikilink to help people understand it if they were unfamiliar with it). Perhaps you would have been less inclined to question that amendment if the word 'gratis' had not been wikilinked? If so, then by all means remove the wikilink - but please leave the correct word in place. To conclude: thanks again, I'm sure you mean well, and I appreciate your good intentions :) zazpot (talk) 00:19, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The term "free" is ambiguous when applied to software. If there were not equally felicitous and less ambiguous ways of saying the same thing, I might have more patience for the argument that we must say "free" here. Personally, I don't care if it says gratis or whether it just says "distributed at no cost" or whether it says something else. Any of these would seem to be less ambiguous and an improvement over simply saying that it is free full stop. Other than stubbornness, why not adopt an equally nice of way of saying something that is not also confusing to people that think free software when hear about about "free" software. —mako๛ 05:31, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

zazpot, I would accept it if you wrote that Whisper is distributed "without charge", or "without cost". I don't think we should use a word like "gratis," because it's jargon used in the free software movement, and most readers wouldn't know what it meant in this context, without following the link. I didn't know what it meant until I read the link. A discussion of gratis vs. libre is very interesting, but no WP:RS about Whisper has brought it up, so it doesn't belong in the article.

WP:NOTJOURNAL "A Wikipedia article should not be presented on the assumption that the reader is well versed in the topic's field. Introductory language in the lead and initial sections of the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field before advancing to more detailed explanations of the topic. While wikilinks should be provided for advanced terms and concepts in that field, articles should be written on the assumption that the reader will not or cannot follow these links, instead attempting to infer their meaning from the text."

--Nbauman (talk) 12:57, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Nbauman, if you check, you will see that you have things back to front :)

In the context of software - and by extension, in the context of the Whisper software - it is the word "free" that is jargon: in that context, the word has a common meaning (equivalent to "libre") which is not always its primary meaning in other English language contexts (and which is false about Whisper). By contrast, in the context of software, "gratis" only possesses its ordinary English meaning, and is therefore not jargon.

I completely agree with the WP:NOTJOURNAL excerpt you quoted, and the edit you are querying accords with it. No part of that edit uses any terms that are not plain or that require knowledge in the given field. As for literate, that's a matter of degree, but we should remember that this is the English Wikipedia and not the Simple English Wikipedia. Certainly, the term "gratis" is present in every English dictionary I've checked since you queried it, with the sense in which I've used it given as the primary sense. These dictionaries include:

• Dictionary.com (which rates "gratis" as fairly low difficulty and says, "Many English speakers likely know this word");
• Merriam-Webster;
• Google; and
• Wiktionary.

I am sorry to see you repeating your claim about WP:RS. It is without foundation here. I explained why in my previous reply.

Anyhow, I am glad that you accept that an alternative to the word "free" would be appropriate. Thank you. That leaves us to reach consensus on what this alternative should be.

For the reasons I have given above, plus the fact that it is less verbose than the phrases you and Mako have suggested, I still think "gratis" is by far the most appropriate alternative. However, if you are unwilling to accept these reasons, then I would be willing to accept the replacement of "proprietary, gratis iOS and Android mobile app" by "proprietary iOS and Android mobile app available without charge".

--zazpot (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, "gratis" sounds old-fashioned to me and Google Ngram Viewer confirms that impression. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gratis&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgratis%3B%2Cc0 --Nbauman (talk) 18:35, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Whether some particular word "sounds old-fashioned" to any individual editor is a highly subjective matter, likely to depend upon all sorts of personal and cultural factors, and surely immaterial to the word's appropriateness. By the same token, I could say: the word sounds contemporary to me, and Google Ngram Viewer corroborates my impression too.

A word's genuine appropriateness in a Wikipedia article depends upon other criteria, including whether it is in the right language, whether it is being used in a manner that is syntactically and semantically sound, and - as we both agree - whether it accords with the excerpt you quoted from WP:NOTJOURNAL. "Gratis", as I used it in the article, satisfies all those criteria.

I have answered every objection you have raised, so perhaps at this point we can let the matter rest :) Thanks, zazpot (talk) 19:59, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I thought we had a consensus to change it to "available without charge". --Nbauman (talk) 13:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd go for "available without charge" to end this discussion. More fundamentally, originally Whisper, the service, originally charged to send messages. Then they stopped charging. Then they were caught monitoring customer activity and location. What's their revenue model? We may know more after their CEO has appeared before Senate staff. John Nagle (talk) 19:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Nbauman, yes: "gratis" is still my preferred option for the reasons I have given and because all the objections raised to it have been addressed; but I am indeed willing to accept the replacement of "proprietary, gratis iOS and Android mobile app" by "proprietary iOS and Android mobile app available without charge" as an acceptable alternative. It is (IMO) not as good, but it has consensus.

Therefore, as "gratis" has not in this case gained consensus, I have edited the article to match the consensus. zazpot (talk) 21:27, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Farrell Reference

The link to the Farrell reference does not redirect correctly and I don't know how to fix it. This is the correct link: http://smusmc.com/11/01/2013/whisper-app-anonymity-prevention-cyber-bullying/ Sparbtastic (talk) 21:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Done. I fixed the link in the reference. Thanks for bringing it up. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

This app needs to be deleted

The app allows pedos to use it to lure children into illegal acts and so much more. 184.100.4.82 (talk) 07:10, 7 June 2023 (UTC)