Eksi Sozluk
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Template:Titlelacksdiacritics Ekşi Sözlük is a collaborative hypertext dictionary that follows almost the same concept as Everything2 or H2G2. The site is in Turkish; the name "Ekşi Sözlük" translates to "Sour Dictionary".
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History
Eksi Sozluk was founded on February 15, 1999 with no serious goal except to be an interactive raw information source. The site had no rules, no user accounts. However as the site grew popular a set of rules and moderation mechanisms had to be put in use to handle increasing number of users and entries every day. Conceptually, the site is very similar to H2G2, it has been inspired a lot by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Currently Eksi Sozluk keeps the position of being the largest and the most popular interactive database about Turkish society. Throughout its growing popularity, it took the interest of press and has been reviewed in many newspapers and TV shows.
The website is: [1] (http://sozluk.sourtimes.org/)
Structure
As of June 2005, there were 4,819,763 entries and 12,211 active writers (sozluk user: suser) in the web site. The creator of the site is "ssg" (Sedat Kapanoglu). There are 9 moderators who scrutinize and, if needed, modify/delete the entries of the members. Only ssg, however, has the authority to accept new writers or delete existing ones. There are also praetors, users specifically grouped for their law background, who provide legal help to moderators.
Susers, or "sözlükçü"s or "yazar"s as they prefer to be called, not only contribute to the growing giant database, but they continuously interact with each other socially through special gatherings called "zirve"s, which translates as "summit"s.
In Ekşi Sözlük, all members are split into six different generations (so far), each signifying the registry date of a particular member. For instance, if a member registered to the site in 1999, s/he is a 1st generation writer, if in 2002, then s/he is a 4th generation writer, and so on. The most recent faction, the 6th generation, boasts a writer group of more than 23,000, making up the largest portion of this internet phenomenon - a clear indication of the growing popularity of the site.
ssg has announced that the seventh generation applications will be initiated sometime in 2005, but no specific date has been determined as of today.
Sometimes user accounts are deleted without informing the account owner. Neither the moderators nor SSG are accountable for their actions, and almost never provide reasons, although there exists guidelines for correct and incorrect entries. Due to the very low number of moderators in comparison with the number of contributors, mistakes are rampant and commonly go uncorrected. Such mistakes cause quite a disgruntlement in the part of those who believe they have been incorrectly cast out, since all their entries disappear with them, and there is no recourse to defend or request a second consideration.
Features
1. The usage of capital letters is omitted.
2. Although it is a Turkish originating site, non-Latin Turkish letters (ç, ı, ğ, ö, ş, ü) are omitted from the titles, but are permitted in the entries.
3. The site runs on ASP and Microsoft SQL Server with several custom extensions like near-matches finder for missing titles called "clairvoyance", a proprietary search engine called "hayvan ara".
4. The interface is skinnable for members, but not for readers.
Sub-Etha
The site features an internal web site network called Sub-Etha which is only open to site members. The sub-sites are built by independent developers and hosted on different locations. Users logged in to Eksi Sozluk can visit those sites without requiring additional member registration or log in procedure. The network include several sites like an art portal called "Sour-FX", a meeting organization and photo-album page called "SourSummitz", the "Eksi Sozluk Museum", an external entry backup facility called "SourLemonade".
Awards
Ekşi Sözlük has won Altin Orumcek Web Contest 2003 Award.
Competition
Since Ekşi Sözlük has not accepted any members for a long time, some groups decided to create similar websites to answer the needs of people who can only read but not write on Ekşi Sözlük. Zibidi Sözlük, which means "nutty dictionary" in Turkish, was the first of the several clones of Ekşi Sözlük that have been established since. Also there are so many clones such as Private Sözlük, Nedir.net, itüsözlük and so on.