The silent majority
by Shang Zuo
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I will not say that the Chinese are quiet, especially when we talk about internet cultures. The Web
is a very dynamic place. But as I disappointedly observed, there is too much noise and too little
significance. Take the forum as an example.
A forum is a common web application in which users can discuss a variety of subjects; such as
movies, music, politics, cars, and books. One forum user starts a topic, and others join in and
make their contributions to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, sometimes people don't get along.
There's always some rude guys insulting people. Then it's time for a forum moderator to step in.
The moderator can delete damaging posts, stop the flaming, or even punish some members.
Technically speaking, Chinese forums and English forums are the same. But one factor makes
them very different: the people using the forums are not the same.
First, the appearance. Chinese forums are brighter. English forums are usually with a light
background color, with a very good reason: reading articles on a completely white background
hurts your eyes. But Chinese forum designers don't seem to be bothered by this. Their forums are
fancier, with more features and graphics.
Fancy design potentially attracts a younger generation. But one disadvantage of the youth forums
is that there aren't many quality posts. In Chinese forums, there are many articles copied from
other places, and when forum members make comments below, they only say whether they agree
or disagree with the article, sometimes very emotionally, without many supporting arguments.
Because the number of hollow responses is so high, even the people who have something
meaningful to say are discouraged. So in the world of Chinese forumers, the one who starts a new
topic is definitely superior to those who can only reply. Consequently, forum software and
management encourage members to start new topics rather than to further a discussion.
Copy-and-paste is hurting everyone. I haven't heard of one case where someone makes real
money by using contents written by others, but copy-and-paste is a sort of intellectual property
infringement. The writers themselves are not consulted. While they're mostly happy to see that
their works spread, they have to know and give their consent. But the forum owners are
desperately trying to protect the posts on their forums. Some technologies have been invented to
dissuade others from taking information from forum websites. On some forums, you can't select or
copy any text on the web page. You can't even right click. Isn't it an odd design?
There is an even more hilarious custom. For the same reason that most articles are copied from
other places, if a member wrote an article by himself, perhaps just a few hundred words, he
claims his credit clearly by putting "original" in the title. Of course, "original" articles are the most
acclaimed. Forum moderators would put these copied or original articles on the top of the board
as the "essence articles" to get more attention.
Chinese forums are generally not really forums to express your opinions but a place to read
news and essays. But you may wonder, if these articles are copied, where are they copied from?
What about their quality?
The origins of these articles are actually a myth. The web writers all start anonymously. Their
writing is pretty good and could be very serious. Their topics range from love stories, movie
reviews, to political essays. They writearticles, and post them on some forums. These articles will
soon be copied to almost every forum. I can't imagine the size of the readership. The authors'
names are familiar to people, but their real identities are often unknown. They rarely respond to
others. So it's a one-way communication. They write, you read. As some writers gain popularity,
publishers will seek them out and contact them to publish books. That is a successful end. But
some writers just enjoy writing on the web and their anonymity.
You can hardly expect these kinds of articles on English forums. If one is so good at writing and
spends so much time on it, he really should find a better place other than a web forum. On the
other hand, on Chinese forums, it's hard to find an ordinary person with decent knowledge and
reasonable opinions. The Chinese forumers, it would seem, are still in the process of learning
how to post public opinions on the web. For now, I'd say English forums are good places to talk
and interact with people, while Chinese forums are places to read articles.
I don't mean that Chinese forums don't have insightful discussions. It would be silly to say so.
But what I have observed is the emergence of a kind of dominating business model among online
forums, which is quite a revelation.
Shang Zuo can be reached at shang_zuo@yahoo.com.