WHEREAS THE campus weekly of the school is published once a week, Snorose keeps its users updated on current issues day to day," says Kim Hye-ram, the chief administrator at Snorose, the online community of Sookmyung Women's University. This remark reveals the current status of internet communities. Their influence now overwhelms that of university newspapers. In this issue of Special Report, The Yonsei Annals will surf the world of online communities.

How they began

   Online university communities emerged with the development of the IT industry in Korea, which started in the late 1990s. Three major communities took the lead: Sungdesarang, Ewhaian, and SNUlife. In April of 2000, five Seoul National University (SNU) graduates gathered to make what is now the biggest ― it has over 90,000 members ― online university community in the country, SNUlife. Many university communities were launched during that time, including Ehwaian of Ewha Womans University and Sungdaesarang of Sungkyunkwan University. By the middle of the last decade, many student associations at various universities had proposed online community establishment as part of their election pledges. "The 41st Student Association (SA) of Korea University created a website by which students could be provided with a more sophisticated information-sharing system. As a result, Koreapas was born," says Park Jong-chan (System Administrator, Koreapas). Now, there are about 11 major university communities online.
   As for Yonsei, Yonjunggong, which stands for Yonsei Information Sharing in Korean, was established in 2002, based on the then-popular portal site Freechal. Though this Freechal-based community had more than 30,000 members, it had obvious limitations, as it was part of a bigger portal site. Following the advent of Cyworld, Freechal has been in decline ever since. At the end of the decade, younger users rarely had a Freechal ID, which left Yonjunggong with senior users only. Since then, while other university communities thrived, Yonsei University did not have a prominent one that could fully represent students. Continuous attempts were made by YonseiWelcome, Ykiki, YonseiLady, Yonseian and other minor communities to bring Yonseians together, but none of them managed to create a lasting success. SeiyonNet of Yonsei University started as an SA-supported group. SeiyonNet, built with the motto of "Pivot of Yonseians", opened in September 2009, and has about 11,683 members as of February. Despite its short history, SeiyonNet is now the most active community, with an average of 5,686 visitors each month.

The positive roles of internet communities

    Most university communities had a common purpose of establishment: to provide information. "When SNUlife first started in 1999, information about restaurants near campus formed most of the contents," says Han Byung-woo (Prof., Dept. of Pharmacy, Seoul National Univ.), one of the five founders of SNUlife. Even today, many freshmen sign up in order to look for information that will help them adjust to their new school life, by helping them find a nice place to live or eat around the campus. Moreover, residence tips, lecture evaluations, flea market, job offers, and even past examination questions (called jokbo in Korean) help students make the most out of the online community. "Among the bunch of information on the community, I find lecture evaluations most helpful," says Kim Yong-hyuk (Soph., Dept. of Food & Nutrition, Seoul National Univ.). If online internet communities were initially a place that simply provided information, now they are a place where information is processed by specialized student bloggers according to the users' needs. For instance, Snorose, the online community of Sookmyung Women's University, has special boards where student bloggers make regular postings. "We have boards specializing in pet diaries, application essays, presentation guidelines, make-up tips, all of which are provided by students," says Kim Hye-ram (Sr., Dept. of Economics, Sookmyung Women's Univ.). Users can easily find information they want on these communities, due to the abundance and categorization of information.
   However, the role of online university communities has changed from being a mere channel of information to a new form of agora. Previously, wallpaper posters were the dominant means of communication before the advent of the Internet. They were posted everywhere around the campus by students seeking to sell second-hand books, rent a room, or criticize the student council or the school administration. Nowadays, if a student wants to report an issue, they post it on online university communities. In January 2010, an anonymous posting worked as a "digital wallpaper poster" on SeiyonNet. A freshman-to-be wrote that she was sexually harassed by her senior at pre-fresh meetings. This accusation of sexual harassment has not only shocked Yonseians, but the whole country, as this was confirmed, and 19 more victims emerged. Despite much dishonor to Yonsei University, it is still meaningful that the communities uncovered problems that otherwise could have been veiled and unknown.
The online communities' scope of influence is not limited to issues on campus. "During times of important political events, like the presidential election, many Korea University students visit Koreapas and engage in in-depth discussions." says Park of Koreapas. Often, internet communities are at the center of political action. In 2008, when the candlelight vigil movement was sweeping the whole nation, internet communities were filled with postings that dealt with the topic. "With the SA reluctant to make any political moves, many students gathered at Snorose and started to raise funds online, which resulted in placing an advertisement in Hankyoreh," says Kim. Every now and then, a new posting starts another debate.  

Problems revolving around the communities

    What the Internet has enabled for university communities is undoubtedly huge, but when it comes to the side-effects of anonymity, its greatest advantage becomes a disadvantage. Community system administrators commonly point out that their anonymity board is the main source of problems. "Because there is no fear of being tracked down, students can freely express their ideas on the anonymity board," says Park. Usually, the anonymity board is the most active board in a university community. However, the contents are usually filled with offensive comments or opinions targeted at certain groups. Although banned, some users constantly write vulgar postings with profane language. "Reading some postings on the anonymity board made me really skeptical about attending this school. Too often, I can find obscene words harassing one another or insulting the other gender. The fact that the writers attend Yonsei University still makes me shudder. I was so disappointed," says a student who does not want to be named (Soph., Dept. of Public Administration); he often visits Yonjunggong for exam notes.
   In fact, one of these harassing postings caused real problems in the off-line world. In a number of online university communities, including Yonjunggong, Koreapas, and SNUlife, a user has actually sued another user for libel. As for Yonjunggong, an upperclassman and an underclassman had a violent argument on the anonymity board through replies, which resulted in the upperclassman personally calling, threatening, and exposing the underclassman's personal information ― name, admission number, and social security number ― on the anonymity board. One's privacy and personal information is so easily abused in the name of freedom of speech. In the aforementioned sexual harassment case, SeiyonNet's anonymity board had to be closed down due to the exposure of the private information of the suspect. To prevent further dissemination of personal information, which could potentially cause further harm to victims, the administrators had to take drastic measures. "The anonymity board is a place to have free debates, not a place to hurt someone or a particular group," says system administrator Kim Jun-mo (Jr., Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Engin.) bitterly. However, peace on the anonymity board seems a distant prospect.
   Every community master is trying to keep a balance between freedom of speech and privacy in their communities. "The administrators being students as well, there are limitations to monitoring," says Shin Chul-woo (Ex-administrator, SNUlife). Few communities have enough staff members to monitor the website twenty-four seven. So, they are having a hard time dealing with a tsunami of slanderous postings. "Since the launch of SeiyonNet, the managers have never deleted even a single post on the board. Instead, we entrusted the users with monitoring, based on the self-purification system*," says system administrator Lee Sang-yun (Sr., Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Engin.). However, the system is not working out as intended, as we can witness every day on any internet community. That means the change needed to improve the current situation has to start from developing our own awareness.

Future to come

   To receive the school administration's support is essential in some part for further development of online communities. In some cases, however, the school's interference is negative. With the communities' growing influence, some school authorities have tried to keep track of students who expressed opinions critical of the school. In January 2010, the SA of Sookmyung Women's University incidentally discovered a document. The document included the students' records of writing posts that were against the government or the school, with security numbers and a summary of what each had written. Similar things have happened at Korea University. While Korea University students would gather at the so-called Godaejagae (Korea University free board in Korean) provided by the school, many users soon found limited freedom inside. "School authorities deleted postings against the school, or made a call to the writer and complained about it," says Park.
   In some cases, though, a school's support can help a community take root. "In the development of SNUlife, the school authorities played an important role. By assigning projects, the administrators of SNUlife could receive many benefits, including full scholarships," says Han. Now, SNUlife has grown big enough to help the school in return. Snulife has donated 100 books to the school library, with a goal of 1,000 books donated by 2020. All of this was possible because SNUlife is a solid community, with a long history and a stable pool of members.
   These communities are constantly evolving: Koreapas recently started providing an I-Phone application that enables users to enjoy various mobile services, including checking library-seat availability. SNUlife is now preparing to launch a twitter service, enabling users to log-on using mobile phones. It is evident that, as time goes by, university students' lives will revolve around these communities to an ever greater degree. Now, the question is how do we make them better? It is a question that not only students but also community administrators and school authorities have to consider.

*self-purification system: a system in which a message that is reported by a certain number or more of users is prevented from being read by other users