What are "whales" and what is an "active period" of an article?

I've been learning as much about #steemit as possible over recent days and have come across mention of all sorts of bizarre terminology including "whales" and "active articles".

What is a #steemit #whale?

FAQ: With your help I will update this article with answers as we develop them

Q: What is a whale?
- A: @cryptobarry - Steemit users who have a large Steem Power holding are able to influence rewards by upvoting. I recommend that new users check out the white paper: https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Q: Can you show me an example?
- A: unknown
Q: What effect can a whale have on an artcile if they #upvote?
- A: @jacor Easiest Explanation of the power of a Whale's vote is to look at the stats below I removed the votes from Whales in graph below:
  
  vs
  Earnings with Whale Voting:
  
  And these are small examples, when a pod of whales hunt together, they can easily push the value up to $600 even a $1000 :0
Q: What impact does a whale have when they upvote comments?
- A: @full-measure When a whale upvotes an article it makes quite the splash! Whales, for the most part, will determine which posts get the most attention and which posts make the most money. This makes sense, since the whales are the most heavily invested in the platform, and therefore have the most incentive to select worthwhile material.
Q: Do their votes affect the #trending and/or #hot functionality?
- A: @full-measure ...the more STEEM POWER you have, the more impact you have. So like, you can't just get 100 of your friends to make accounts and upvote you.. the upvote only matters proportional to how much that person has invested in the platform. And a "whale" just means there will be a ton of STEEM POWER behind one single vote. (There's no specific point where someone becomes a whale, it just means they have a bunch of STEEM POWER.)
Q: How does someone become a #whale, do they have to make a lot of posts or receive a lot of upvotes?
- A: @full-measure The surest way to become a whale would be to buy a lot of STEEM POWER, if you're wealthy enough to do it. If that's not an option, you'll have to earn it. It might take a long time, or a lot of luck, to post your way into being a whale. But there's nothing wrong with being a dolphin.
Q: Have all whales made a lot of money on #steemit?
- A: @full-measure Whales have not necessarily made a lot of money on Steemit. Any user who chooses to purchase STEEM POWER can do so, and would then be considered a whale if they bought enough. In general those with a lot of STEEM POWER have probably profited a lot, since they'll tend to be interested in providing good content and since STEEM has risen in price, but anyone with deep enough pockets could become a whale right now.
Q: How long does it take to become a whale?
- A: unknown
Q: How do you catch a whale? :-)
*A: unknown

What is an active article?

Q: What is an active article?
- A: unknown
Q: Does an article get removed or deleted after a period of time?
- A: unknown
Q: What is this period of time?
- A: unknown
Q: Can you ever get the article back or reopened?
- A: unknown
Q: What happens to an article that is not active, does it not appear in "ternding", is it no longer searchable on/off-site?
- A: unknown
Q: @busser voting and curating, is it the same thing? If so, why in history there are strings "curating reward"? upvoting result I see in SP .
- A: unknown