Ekşi Sözlük
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Ekşi Sözlük [1] is a collaborative hypertext dictionary that shares a similar concept with Everything2 or H2G2. The site is in Turkish; the name "Ekşi Sözlük" translates to "Sour Dictionary". It was founded in 1999 to be an interactive platform where raw information can be accessed.
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[edit] Structure
As of October 2005, there were 5,179,874 entries and 12,585 active writers in the web site which was created by "ssg" (Sedat Kapanoğlu) and is co-developed by "teo" (Murat Arslan). The moderation consists of 10 moderators who scrutinize and, if needed, delete the entries of the members. Moderators can oust writers for abuse, legal reasons or their entry profiles. Although there is no separate meta-moderation system writers are inherently able to comment on or criticise moderation actions publicly with no specific restrictions.
"Sözlükçü"s or "yazar"s as they prefer to be called, not only contribute to this growing giant database, but also they continuously interact with each other socially through special gatherings called "zirve"s, which translates as "summit"s.
[edit] Membership
In Ekşi Sözlük, members are split into generations (so far), each signifying the registration 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. One of the recent factions, 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, predominantly among teenagers and college students.
New applicants are placed into çaylak mode, which translates to the "rookie" mode, where one must submit a minimum of 10 entries within the rules to be a full user. Until these entries are checked by the administration, rookies cannot do anything but to change personal settings and add more "invisible" entries. Rookie mode entries are hidden from visitors and other users until the applicant is approved. The reason for such an approach is to see if the applicant really understood the concept of the Ekşi Sözlük.
When accepted users disobey the rules, they are thrown back to rookie status, which is equivalent to a warning. In extreme cases, a user can be banned, and all his/her entries and account are completely deleted from the system without a warning.
Some members, who have proven themselves to the moderators by sending them erroneous entries to be deleted or moved, are awarded with gammaz status which translates telltale status and become a member of "Ekşi Sözlük Gammaz Senior Staff". They have extra options, like being able to mark an entry as erroneous or should be moved to the specified title. Those marks are prompted to the moderators for the entries to be checked. Only admins and moderators can delete and move entries. However, it is possible to come across thousands of spams and wrong or irrelevant messages in the entries.
Currently membership is not open. But a new category "kayıtlı okur" (registered reader) was added in May 2005. Registered readers may vote about entries in the same manner with yazars, while their interactions with the site is currently limited by thus; they cannot collaborate, participate or otherwise use facilities that site offers to its yazars. As of October 2005, the site has approximately 30,000 registered readers.
[edit] Standards and features
- No usage of capital letters; only lower-case letters are used.
- Although it is a Turkish originated site, Turkish letters which are not found in the Latin alphabet (ç, ı, ğ, ö, ş, ü) are replaced by standard Latin letters (c, i, g, o, s, u) in titles due to ASCII-based URL restrictions; but they can be used in the entries.
- The site runs on ASP and Microsoft SQL Server with several custom extensions like near matches finder for missing titles called clairvoyance and a proprietary search engine called hayvan ara (which means in Turkish Animal Search or Animal! Search!), which originates from the expression "Searching like an animal," meaning searching aggressively and vigorously).
- The interface is skinnable both for members and registered readers.
- Titles are limited to 50 characters, yet there is no clear restriction for the title format or content.
- The site has distinctively humorous copyright notices: Copyrights are assigned to a (highly likely) imaginary company called Sourtimes Entertainment[2]. Yet, the most recent copyright notice boasted that authors are solely responsible for what they write and declared openly that the site would deliver the email addresses of yazars if "somebody comes to the door" (presumably an official person) and asks for it. The notice also had blasted that anybody who forwards the entries to others without attribution, is obese and taoist.
- The site features an internal web site network called sub-etha, which is only open to yazars. The sub-sites are built by independent developers and hosted on different locations. Yazars logged in to Ekşi Sözlük can visit those sites without requiring additional member registration or log in procedure. The network include several sites:
- "sour fx": Art portal,
- "soursummitz": Meeting organization and photo-album,
- "sourlemonade": An external entry backup facility,
- "eksi sozluk cpu power": As of December 7th, 2005 the 7th biggest World Community Grid participation team in more than 6000 teams around the world (48th in total contribution)
- "s.c.r.e.e.n": Sozluk users' screenshot archive,
- "eksi sozluk muzesi": A permanent archive for selected (especially malformed) entries,
- "smkb": An auction site,
- "sourworkz": A warehouse for Eksi Sozluk related software,
- "eksi rss": Ekşi Sözlük RSS feed,
- "eksinvite": A module that distributes free promotional tickets for concerts, festivals etc. to yazars,
- "eksi atari": A facility which allows yazars to play online vintage computer games like Pac-man, Tetris, etc., (currently offline due to copyright issues)
- "awef2": A theme (skin) generator for Ekşi Sözlük.
Most of the above sites are not in the sub-etha anymore, only sourlemonade and eksi sozluk cpu power are active. Some have been replaced by the new sites, and the some have simply vanished. New aditions to sub-etha are:
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- "limon": Replaced soursummitz for zirve organizations,
- "esbpl": Stands for eksi sozluk birinci pazar ligi (eksi sozluk first Sunday division). Used as a gathering place for amateur football organizations,
- "ek$i muze": Replaced "ek$i sozluk muzesi" for displaying deleted entries,
- "ek$ibition": Replaced sour fx, is criticized for allowing less creative content, and more cats.
- "pikka": Is the revival of an old classic. Used for keeping track of the latest entries by users favorite yazars, and in favorite basliks.
[edit] The magazine
Albeit a short-lived initiative, a group of Ekşi Sözlük authors founded and edited the compact format weekly magazine called Ekşi ("Sour" in English), whose first issue was published on September 15th, 2005. Ekşi had two main sections: The first section was akin to The Onion and contains satirical news stories. The second section, called "ek2i", included articles about various issues in art, literature and politics, all written by Ekşi Sözlük users. The publisher [3] decided to discontinue the magazine on November 23, 2005.
[edit] Competition
Since Ekşi Sözlük does not accept new writers except when decided by the staff, some groups decided to create similar websites. Marvin Rehber, which means "Marvin Guide" in Turkish, was the first of the many similar sites that have been established since. Currently there are many other similar sites such as Bilgi Sözlük, GİA, İTÜ Sözlük, Ar-Ge Sözlük, Nedir.net, Zamane Sözlük, Private Sözlük etc.
[edit] Criticism
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Eksi Sozluk is often criticised by its members due to its ambiguous moderation standards and practice which renders moderators virtually/legally untouchable lawmakers/punishers whose basis for acts and deeds are invisible to general public.
One specific example is the case of "götümüze girebilir" rule (the meaning roughly translates as: "(this entry) may put us into peril"). This law initially created to prevent the site admins from possible libel suits or mafia assaults by those who may be offended by entries that they can read and understand and wouldn't want others who too can read/understand to do so. However, the rule now seems to be effective against non-Turkish international celebrities, deceased international historical figures and similar non-cases who are mostly unlikely to cause a peril. Notable examples are: Stalin, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Fiennes.
Most of the valid criticisms often stem from the site rules and regulations basic lack of knowledge regarding law making and judicial systems. Though the advice of praetors are often asked, praetors came in after the rules and regulations issued by a coder-turned-site-admin Sedat Kapanoğlu, who is neither informed nor knowledgeable in the fundamentals of lawmaking and debates criticisms by appealing to "unquestionable authority issuing personal fascist order"[citation needed]. Praetors, who are known to be students/practitioners of open law systems are also questioned and criticised since they "play along" within the framework of this closed and single-sided judicial system which shares few with the fundamentals of modern lawmaking and judicial systems[citation needed].
Though not proven, it is widely stated[citation needed] by users that there might be nepotism and comradeship between praetors and mods, being the part of valid criticism since it is the existing closed administration method that allows such rumors to propagate and emanate.
Another example is experienced in the way the basic punishment system operates. "Çaylak Modu" (The Rookie Mode) is a way of punishing/rehabilitating users who are sentenced guilty within the framework of the existing laws, by making them prove themselves by writing 10 valid and legal entries to be judged by the mods. However, the process allows no right to self defense, and is immediately executed once the mods (if need be consenting praetors) choose to do so. So once a user is turned into rookie he/she is not told the reason why, but rather expected to know why he/she is guilty for whichever reason.
In the rookie mode a user has no access to send or receive messages to make inquiries on the nature of his/her punishment, or an option to make an appeal, an aspect which disenfranchise and alienate many users and increase the number of conformists and imitators who add up to the mediocrity of a site that was once the mecca for freedom of speech and ripe with marginal thoughts, practices.
The last stop in the user punishment is the removal of the account for good. A user can be kicked out of the system without a warning for not following the publicly accessible site rules. This action occasionaly leaves ex-users with their imagination and with the help of losing rationality due to frustration some prefer to think that commenting on or criticise moderation system or actions was the actual reason behind the account removal.
[edit] Legal issues
Users of Ekşi Sözlük are outspoken and somewhat unpopular. At the time when Ekşi Sözlük was founded, Internet in Turkey wasn't as widespread as today. Because of that, several offending comments about political fractions or celebrities were overlooked. But when the Turkish TV host Ece Erken threatened the site administration with legal action unless they remove any offending comments regarding her, the title "Ece Erken" had to be emptied and locked. And on 2005, the Turkish legislation was extended to handle issues over the Internet. In order to avoid any problems, six yazars all of whom either have law degrees or are law students were selected to act as 'praetors', legal consultants to moderators. A recent addition to rules was that users are now responsible to write entries that fall within legal limitations, and take not to enter anything which might damage Ekşi Sözlük. There are still some locked topics, yet they are seldom.
