| Ekşi Sözlük | |
| Screenshot Size: | 250px |
| Commercial: | Website and Mobile App |
| Type: | Online dictionary, social networking service |
| Language: | Turkish |
| Registration: | Required for posting and voting, not required for viewing |
| Owner: | Ekşi Teknoloji ve Bilişim A.Ş.[1] |
| Founder: | Sedat Kapanoğlu (known as "ssg" in the website) |
| Current Status: | Active |
Ekşi Sözlük (pronounced as /tr/,, stylized as ekşi sözlük) is a Turkish collaborative hypertext dictionary, a type of social network based on dictionaries.[2] It is one of the largest online communities in Turkey and one of the oldest Turkish websites still in operation. Unlike what its name may imply, Ekşi Sözlük is not a dictionary in the strict sense; users are not required to write correct information. As an online public sphere, Ekşi Sözlük is utilized by users for information sharing on various topics ranging from scientific subjects to everyday life issues, but also used as a virtual socio-political community to communicate disputed political contents and to share personal views.[3]
Ekşi Sözlük was launched by self-taught coder Sedat Kapanoğlu in 1999, for humorous information sharing and communicating with his friends, as he was inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. When it was launched, Ekşi Sözlük was an interactive part of a satire website sourtimes.org which was named after the Portishead song "Sour Times", and it was named "Ekşi (Sour)" for this reason.[4] [5] [6]
Ekşi Sözlük has been successful, many other websites that use this concept has emerged, like in Turkish.[7] Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tüfekçi says it is like "Wikipedia, a social network and Reddit rolled into one".[8]
On February 21, 2023, access to the website was blocked in Turkey by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority of Turkey.[9] [10] On March 2, 2023, the 4th Ankara Criminal Court of Peace decided to remove the access barrier, but the decision was reversed by a higher court and it remained blocked[11] until January 22, 2024.[12]
Enrollment periods to the dictionary and the criteria of acceptance are changeable.[13] Ekşi Sözlük does not accept new authors continuously; there are specific times in which new authors are accepted. There is a waiting period for new members who want to become authors in which they must post at least 10 entries. All entries are inspected according to the dictionary rules and their quality, and if they pass inspection, the new user becomes an author. However, this process might take from months to years.
Titles are limited to 50 characters in length. Entries have no length limit.
Newcomer, Newcomer awaiting approval, Registered reader, Praetors, and Hacıvat are some of the user roles in Ekşi Sözlük.[13]
Since there are no practical restrictions on entries, moderators and informers are responsible for catching and deleting any inappropriate entry. Informers are usually the older generation authors who voluntarily report any bad content to moderators for examination. If the moderators find the entries inappropriate, they are deleted.
Site statistics[14] are updated on a daily basis. There are 300 to 400 posts on average for each author. More than half of the authors are at the age of 18–25 and the number of male users is two times more than that of female ones.
No capital letters are allowed in the posts.[15] This prevents all-caps shouting.
An official application for Ekşi Sözlük has been released in 2017 for iOS and Android platforms.[16]