There's hardly anything written in English about one of Turkey's most popular websites. As a member myself, I decided to write a little bit about what it is and how it works.
Ekşi Sözlük is sort of a dictionary where any member of the site can post and add information to. (I bet there is a fancy name for what it actually is but I can really be arsed to check it out now.) Using the motto "The Holy Information Resource", Ekşi Sözlük tries to give information mostly based on the users' experiences or thoughts. Of course, anything that would legally get the website in trouble is not posted.
I remember the earlier days of the website (I think I had first visited it in 2002, have been a member since 2007) and I think the reason why it's so popular is that it's not different from the coffee house culture of Turkey. In a typical Turkish cofffee house, you can people arguing, discussing different thoughts or topics on many subjects ranging from politics, sexuality, sports, religion, etc.
When I have a look at the frame on the left side of the page, which is basically a list of topics which have been contributed to recently, I see topics about pretty much anything. That's probably why I like it too. You can say almost anything about anyone.
I sometimes wish the content of Ekşi Sözlük (lit. Sour Dictionary) was in English sometimes so that people from other parts of the world wouldn't think Turkey is a shithole.
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