hankyoreh

By Jeon Jin-sik　

Students at KAIST are in an uproar over the repeated deletion of Wikipedia posts critical of university President Suh Nam-pyo by an employee of his secretarial office.

An examination conducted Tuesday on the record of edits to the Korean-language entry on Suh in the Internet encyclopedia showed a total of seven complete deletions of its “Evaluation and Criticisms” section between July 18 and 25, followed by immediate reposting of the content by other users. The same history was observed with the English-language entry for Suh. The section contains an assessment of Suh’s presidency based on media reports on the differential tuition calculation system and all-English lectures instituted following his 2006 inauguration as president, as well as the factors and responsibility behind the suicides of four students between January and April of this year.

A KAIST student posted a message on the campus Internet bulletin board reading, “We need to determine whether [the deletion of information critical of Suh Nam-pyo] was done voluntarily or whether there were orders from higher-up,” referring to the head of the president’s secretarial office or Suh himself.

“This is an area where there is some room for debate, but it was presented as though the incidents occurred because of President Suh, and that is why I deleted it,” said the secretarial office employee in question during a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

“I did not receive any orders,” the employee added. “It was based purely on my own determination.”

“Wikipedia recognizes every user’s right to edit, revise, or delete information, but when a single user repeatedly deletes a particular item as in this case, it can only be viewed as having some intended purpose,” said Min Kyung-bae, professor of NGO studies at Kyung Hee Cyber University. “It violates the basic spirit of Wikipedia.”

Meanwhile, the university’s emergency reform committee, chaired by professors’ association head Gyeong Jong-min, wrapped up three months of activities Monday by announcing its final report to university members. KAIST announced that it received written approval by each of its governors on the committee’s demand for the discontinuation of the punitive tuition calculation system and would be implementing it immediately as of the second semester of 2011. Under the system, students’ tuition was based on their grades.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]