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Q: Wumao: Questions and Speculation
Regarding Silva, freezing_hot, etc.:
Is he a wumao? He seems terribly incompetent.
Why does he post topics in groups of three? Is it a wumao policy or just a form of autism? Because it's really stupid and an obvious giveaway.
His over-the-top attempts at cultural authenticity are a problem too. Actual Americans don't constantly remind people they are American*, or make awkward cultural references to "prove" their authenticity.
*With the exception of Hulk.
Regarding wumaos in general:
Isn't the reason for their existence to steer online conversation in a more government friendly direction? Because in my experience they achieve the exact opposite. Attempts to "guide" people's opinions provoke far more hostile reactions than would otherwise have occurred.
The degree of cultural authenticity, linguistic ability and psychological awareness required to convince people you are from a different culture and change their opinions to pro-Chinese ones would be extraordinary. A person with these abilities would be doing something worth more than a few RMB per hour.
Are there talented wumaos among us who are actually succeeding at their job? Because my contempt for the CCP grows with every passing day, along with my tendency to express it.
Does this kind of thing actually work on Chinese people, or just inspire the same hostile reflex (resulting in more anti-CCP sentiment than before)?
Speculation:
I think a lot of mainland Chinese people have a subconscious loathing of their own society which stems from being prompted to say or think things they don't really feel. Whatever the success of paid commentators in derailing conversations and distracting people from their own observations and opinions, the discontentment it breeds in the soul is not going to result in people being happy with their situation.
Should the CCP think of a new strategy to make people like them? Like... doing something good? Haha, just kidding, CCP. None of us expect that.
Why does he post topics in groups of three?
=> To push disturbing posts to the graveyard ie. past the first page
His over-the-top attempts at cultural authenticity are a problem too?
=> Well, sometimes, those posters sounds just like angry US citizens, who are delusional of what China is. "The foes of my foe are my friends" and a good pair of rose-tinted glasses. Shouting "wumao ! wumao !" makes us look like scared, paranoid crackpots. Replying with well-constructed counter-arguments dipped in humor & irony is, I think, does a way better job. Wumao or angry man alike.
Why the wumaos ? It does not work !
=> Did you see a lot of people in China questioning the meaning, the efficiency or the consequence of their job ? As far it pays the bill, it's good enough. Add a bit of crass nationalism (as in "it fills-in my insecurities"), and there you go. Wumaos.
Why not trying to make people like you ?
=> That requires boldness and imagination. Yeah, right... And it's menacing the 5000 years old harmony of the great kingdom of Chin.... rzzzzzz.. rzzzzzz.. rzzzzzz Nah, it's just hard, would make you tired, so just do half-hearted attempts and let your insecurities win the best of you. Ever read "The True Story of Ah Q" by Lu Xun ? Since 1920, it's still essentially true.
They can copy our answers and show :
You see, I told you, all are hating China, they do not like it here. Let's get rid of them.
Here are the IP address, you can find them out. spam them, infect their computers, watch them day&night...
this is just few of many reasons
DrMonkey:
I think it's a gross overestimation of your own importance in the eyes of local gouv. You would be down in the streets with your 20 fellow militants asking for rule of the law, then yes, all what you mention would be true. But ranting on a forum, I don't think so ^^
RiriRiri:
You're wrong, I'm afraid. This site is a goldmine of stuff you can put out of context next time you need to trigger nationalist anger out of nowhere.
expatlife26:
I see two distinct strains of wumao posts, which can give us some clues to their agenda.
one is the "baited anti-china question" something vague that seems like an innocent question designed to get racist remarks from people, there is also the pro-CFTU variant where it's trying to push that organization through vague 'horror stories' playing on common fears of expats living here and touting that organization as a savior.
The other is the “baited anti-USA question”, namely picking up on a popular and emotionally provocative topic that tend to get two kinds of responses. 1: “Yeah but China is worse!” 2. “I agree fuck the USA go China!”
Both of them kinda frame a story where Expats in China know their own countries are horrible, yet come here to look down on the locals. We’re just freeloaders running from our own failing countries and trying to suck China dry.
The concept of Wumao - namely institutionalized Internet trolling working for governments, institutions or simply companies (yes), is a cancer that's growing in nearly all the public websites/forums I use to frequent. Many of them having no relation with China. It's a global thing, but yes, China was a pioneer, kudos China.
In some cases, paid-trolls are operating with great meticulously, discretion and they seem following well thought out plans backed with manpower. I have witnessed the mood of very popular (non-China) forums change completely because of those, and the moderators being absolutely powerless if even aware of the problem. I wasted a great deal of time chasing evidence, to no avail, so I won't do it again.
Therefore, I couldn't say for eChinacities. I've seen those posts completely out of place about the US, about CTFU and I agree with most of DrMonkey's suspicions. But I still can't tell for sure because if there's a particularity with China wumaos, it's that their work is sloppily planned out, and even more sloppily executed. Here it just looks half-assed, just bad enough so it got spotted eventually. So, might just be bored guys, or might be people with a plan. That's the paradox : it's so bad you can't even tell whether it's amateurish, or professionnal-with-chinese-characteristics.
Either way, yes, it's completely pointless, won't change anyone's thought, but god you should see those they have on news portals like QQ or 163.
They don't even try to be believable. The only way to make them more obvious would be to put flashing lights around them.
Regarding the wumao question, I don't think they are here (or anywhere) to actually change the views China critics have about China as such. It's more about to drown out the critical voices in a sea of blind pro-Chinese propaganda. So they can say "look how many people think China is awesome" while pushing the critical voice to the second, third etc pages.
Wumao is the exact type of non-solution to serious problems that is to be expected from the Chinese government. No, let's not deal with the criticism in any rational way, let's just "manage our online image".
There is a good Polish expression "getting spat in the face, and saying it's raining" that's exactly what the CCP tries to, spit in the collective face of the Chinese people while paying people to say it's merely raining.
Crap. Now it is clear to me. Samsara is the king of Wumaos (or Queen, how did that debate go? ) By posting well thought through posts at random intervals no one ever gets suspicious that he/she could be a wumao.
I would guess the reason posts come in 3s is that the wumao is handling multiple sites, and most likely does a round trip to each site several times per day. Maybe if you try really hard you'd find that each time after said wumao has posted on this site, another site will also receive 3 mindnumbingly lame posts.
DrMonkey:
Maybe I can give him/her a script where he/she can post stuffs but delay and randomize the time it's actually posted. It would like, pfffiuuuu, 100 lines of Python code.
Scandinavian:
You need to also build a crawler that can rip questions from other sites to build a db of "great questions" should be possible to do so by filtering off questions contains unpleasent words such as "smog" or "small penis"
DrMonkey:
It's doable ! It's called Markov Text Generation :D People generated whole journal articles with this kind of technics, that passed peer-review. A famous case was the Sokal Affair.
@Dr. Monkey, Samsara et al.
It's amazing how easy it is to tell the wumaos from sincere posts...if only because the questions are so inorganic and sound way more like political talking points than something a person would actually say.
For example this one is misguided but I think it's sincerely written by a guy who thinks that expats are disrespectful of Chinese women. It sounds right to me that someone could sincerely hold that opinion and ask a question about it.
http://answers.echinacities.com/question/why-so-many-foreigners-think-it...
Whereas I don't think it's likely that a random expat forum guy is going to write a super long biased question about how the RMB is going to replace the USD as the world reserve currency with a bunch of sourced statements backing it up.
http://answers.echinacities.com/question/will-renminbi-ever-replace-us-d...
This one I think is legitimately someone looking for a job that may be having trouble because they are black, even though they sound very qualified. It doesn't set off any bullshit alarms.
http://answers.echinacities.com/question/urgent-i-need-teaching-job-wuha...
But this one is your typical predetermined conclusion preceded by a faux-innocent, but in reality very baited question.
http://answers.echinacities.com/question/do-you-really-feel-minority-chi...
I absolutely think that a possible reason they do this is to gather fodder for a "Look what they are saying about us!" story next time a nationalist distraction is needed. It's tougher to use organically occurring racist remarks...like for example comments on a story about something horrific like beating a toddler to death or a driver murdering an accident victim post-crash because in their context they can seem somewhat justified. You used to see those stories on Chinasmack and a ton of the comments are incredibly ashamed and self-effacing.
But a seemingly innocent question like "Do you really feel like a minority here?" with a couple vague statements on how maybe you have to pay more for vegetables that unleashes a torrent of anti-chinese sentiment really makes it easy to drum up anti-foreign anger.
Scandinavian:
"But a seemingly innocent question like "Do you really feel like a minority here?" with a couple vague statements on how maybe you have to pay more for vegetables that unleashes a torrent of anti-chinese sentiment really makes it easy to drum up anti-foreign anger. "
The problem with the global village is all the global village idiots (cluding in yours truely)
RiriRiri:
Well, seems the A-team is trying to downvote you off, you might have hit a nerve.
DrMonkey:
To me, shouting "wumao ! wumao !" based on a personal feeling is a crossing a line I don't want to cross. Maybe it's a good guess, but maybe it's not, you're a human, not an oracle. I already met people outside of China, who think China is a great example to follow. Yeah, they never lived in China, have a very rosy-tainted vision of things, but they have a dream and made a mission to diffuse it. You do not have to shout "wumao ! wumao !", it's a Cultural Revolution-like behavior, and it makes you like a scared paranoid (I don't say you are, I just say how it might looks like IMO). If it is really a battle of opinion, looking on the defensive is not working in your favor.
For instance, the question about RMB & USD with a list of arguments : maybe a wumao or not, who cares ? Most of those arguments are fragile and are easy to put in question. For a question which sounds like an appeal to unleash expat's anger, well, you can simply ignore it. I think that is a more effective approach.
RiriRiri:
I'll have to disagree with you a second time in the same topic on the same day.
There's nothing personal there as far as I can see. No one is trying to get someone hanged here, but in order to make a point on this issue, you can hardly avoid quoting.
I know the problem, and I understand what you say, I've been there on other forums, I've accused of this too, although it wasn't Cultural Revolution references, but straight out Goldwin points. Same logic.
No need to be paranoid, just point out some disturbing facts. If the guy is unjustly accused, he is free to make is point.
I will totally agree that what people should do is simply ignore those, that's whay I've been saying about Vic too.
i'm here to augment everyone's paranoia, if you'll permit. yes, most of the wumao questions asked are laughably obvious, but we should be careful with a thread like this, which is basically a set of pointers for the less professional wumao to improve his quality rather than output. i think the rigid employer's demands and the disinterest and apathy the wumao have for their tedious jobs, work in favour of keeping free communication relatively safe. language barrier also makes us a low-priority target, as well as more difficult to fool. but never forget that there's another league of wumao out there. recall the CFTU discussions, which resulted in 5 accounts being deleted, all of which used decent english in an adaptive discussion. it took a long time and very discerning eyes to root them out. they may be private initiatives offering more creative foreigner-monitoring services to the gov't, or to schools directly. we should be on our guard at all times, not let the obvious ones lull us into confidence and complacency, and perhaps refrain from listing all the telltale signs. we may actually be tutoring ambitious wumao. FOR FREE!
DrMonkey:
You can also see the CFTU as an attempt to setup a scam by someone who happen to be a native English speaker. Example of an other forum where the same thing happened, same pattern:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=103895&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45
English teacher in China are a nice target for a scammer, because of the lack of legal recourse in case of problems, and the justifiable fear to be scammed. No need to invoke the ubiquitous, pervasive wumao for every single thing.
Reading all the above posts I think that the incompetency of the wumaos might be working. Take this forum as an example. In the last two weeks we've had several of them on here, Grumpy, EZ9B4, Freezing_Hot etc. We've all recognised them pretty quickly, apparently so has admin and then banned them. But they just keep coming like a slow tide that never stops because the human resources they have to do this kind of thing is endless. They can create a new account EVERYDAY if they wanted to and just keep attacking. And even though we know who they are, how to identify them and to ignore them, it still causes discontent among the users. Then we get the questions “Is this a battlefield", "Is it more about the American Govt" etc.
So ultimately, even though they are obvious, their persistence and ignorance annoy some enough to not want to return to this forum. Which is sad no? I just really don't want them to win this virtual arm wrestle.
RiriRiri:
People should just learn not to bite. There's like twenty regulars at most, and said topics got super super repetitive in the last couple of days. Shouldn't be too hard now.
But Why????? There are few members here and even fewer regulars. Why in the world would anyone pay wumaos to come to this site? Perhaps there are a few but it also seems like there are more than a few conspiracy-theory types here. Most people here have been called a wumao here at some point or other.
icnif77:
In US, they're called 'Zelda', with proven
facts of their existence ('Up-yours' files).
I kind of miss Mattaya/ Silva, a perfect straight man to make come backs with.
