Ekşi Sözlük

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title: "Ekşi Sözlük" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1999-establishments-in-turkey", "turkish-social-networking-websites", "turkish-language-websites", "internet-properties-established-in-1999", "online-dictionaries", "collaborative-projects"] description: "Dictionary-based social networking service" topic_path: "geography/turkey" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekşi_Sözlük" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Dictionary-based social networking service ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
name	Ekşi Sözlük
logo	Ekşi Sözlük yeni logo.svg
logo_size	150px
logo_caption	"Kutsal Bilgi Kaynağı (The Sacred Source Of Knowledge)"
screenshot	EksiSozlukSS.png
screenshot_size	250px
caption	Screenshot of the page showing the topic "vikipedi" as of 2023.
url
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.
founder	Sedat Kapanoğlu (known as "ssg" in the website)
launch_date
current_status	Active
::

| name = Ekşi Sözlük | logo = Ekşi Sözlük yeni logo.svg | logo_size = 150px | logo_caption = "Kutsal Bilgi Kaynağı (The Sacred Source Of Knowledge)" | screenshot = EksiSozlukSS.png | screenshot_size = 250px | caption = Screenshot of the page showing the topic "vikipedi" as of 2023. | url = | 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. | founder = Sedat Kapanoğlu (known as "ssg" in the website) | launch_date = | current_status = Active

Ekşi Sözlük (, , stylized as ekşi sözlük) is a Turkish collaborative hypertext dictionary, a type of social network based on dictionaries. 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.

History

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. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Ekşi_Sözlük_logo.png" caption="Former logo of Ekşi Sözlük, used from early 2000s to 2016."] ::

Ekşi Sözlük has been successful, many other websites that use this concept has emerged, like in Turkish. Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tüfekçi says it is like "Wikipedia, a social network and Reddit rolled into one". ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Ekşi_Sözlük_kitapları.jpg" caption="Many merchandises of Ekşi Sözlük are printed publications such as books and magazines. The image shows some books from a fan's collection. The books include entries compiled from the site."] ::

On February 21, 2023, access to the website was blocked in Turkey by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority of Turkey. 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 until January 22, 2024.

Rules and structure

Enrollment periods to the dictionary and the criteria of acceptance are changeable. 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.

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 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. This prevents all-caps shouting and technical issues involving the correct casing of i/ı(in Turkish, I and i are considered 2 different letters although İ /ı use the same lowercase and uppercase form respectively).

Mobile application

An official application for Ekşi Sözlük has been released in 2017 for iOS and Android platforms.

Notes

References

References

1. Slogan of Ekşi Sözlük. Trivially verifiable by looking at the main page's title.
2. "ekşi sözlük kullanım koşulları".
3. (2020-05-13). "General Introduction and Roots of Ekşi Sözlük".
4. Hatice Akca. (December 2016). "The Internet as a participatory medium: An analysis of the Eksi Sozluk website as a public sphere". University of South Carolina.
5. Buyukdemir, Burak. (9 November 2010). "6 Kasım Etohum Kampı Ankara - Sedat Kapanoğlu - Eksisozluk.com".
6. "Ekşisözlük adı nereden çıktı? - Etohum".
7. Yücel, Deniz. (2014-03-29). "Beliebte Internetseite Ekşi Sözlük: Die Seite, die alles weiß". Die Tageszeitung: taz.
8. "Katılımcı Sözlükler (Ekşi Sözlük, İtü Sözlük, Uludağ Sözlük v.b) - Caner Erden".
9. Kantrowitz, Alex. (10 July 2013). "How The Founder of Turkey's Original Social Network Explained It To His Microsoft Co-Workers". Forbes.
10. (2023-02-21). "BTK'den Ekşi Sözlük engeli!". Cumhuriyet.com.tr.
11. (2023-02-21). "Ekşi Sözlük hakkında erişimin engellenmesi kararı". [[Gazete Duvar]].
12. (2023-02-03). "Turkish court once again blocks access to popular social network Ekşi Sözlük".
13. (2024-01-22). "Ekşi Sözlük için erişim engeli kaldırıldı".
14. "Archived copy".
15. "istatistikler - ekşi sözlük".
16. Trivially verifiable by looking at any post at the website at {{url. https://eksisozluk.com
17. (2017-07-22). "Ekşi Sözlük'ün kendi uygulaması yayınlandı! - Teknoloji Haberleri".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::