Uludağ Sözlük
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Uludağ Sözlük ("Uludağ Dictionary") is a Turkish "collaborative dictionary": a site where users create topic-headings and write short signed entries under them. The format was born on the Turkish internet in the early 2000s and holds up to this day; this particular site has been running since 2005 — the "© copyright 2005 - 2026" line stands in the footer of every page.
A glossary of the terms you cannot get by without here: *başlık* — a topic-heading; *entry* — a post under a topic; *yazar* — an author with full rights; *çaylak* — a newcomer, literally "rookie"; *gündem* — the agenda of the day; *ukte* — a request that someone write about something; *gammaz* — literally "informer", the local name for those who send complaints to the moderators.
The founder is İsmail Alpen; his name is given both in the "hakkımızda" section on the site and as the app developer on Google Play.
Who's here
The platform keeps detailed open statistics itself — a rare case. On the date of the check it reports: 27,372,879 entries in all, 3,878,809 topics, 372,855 registered members, of them 70,451 full authors and 204,062 çaylak newcomers; 11,627 awaiting activation, 86,695 marked as "silik" ("faded"); 8 moderators and 21 "yetkili" (an authorized member); 42,682,730 votes; on average 7 entries per topic and 389 entries per author.
The same page carries a figure that says more about moderation than any rules: 20,674,548 deleted entries and 1,285,572 deleted topics. That is, roughly as much has been deleted as remains. And one more: 15,502 "gammaz", that is members who send complaints.
The language is Turkish (lang="tr" in the markup). The audience, by all appearances, is Turkish: the registration form offers a choice of country dialling code from a long list, which includes Türkiye (90). The mobile apps, meanwhile, are modest. Google Play in the Turkish locale shows "1 B+ İndirme" — that is, more than a thousand installs (Turkish "bin" is a thousand), a USK 12+ age rating and an update date of 14 June 2026. On the App Store there are only 3 ratings averaging 5.0, a 4+ rating and a size of 29.4 MB, and the review dates show that the app was relaunched in May 2026. So the platform's life is on the site, not in the apps.
Getting started
Registration is free. The form asks for a username, an email address, a password and a mobile phone number with a country code selector; the alternative is signing in with Google and then choosing a name in the dictionary. Confirmation happens by SMS: the form has an "üyeliğimi onayla" (confirm my membership) and a "yeni sms" button.
One detail the platform puts right on the registration form: "✦ yapay zeka ile anlık yazarlık kontrolü" — instant authorship checking by artificial intelligence. Exactly how it works is not explained.
A newcomer arrives not as an author but as a çaylak. Judging by the statistics, this is a separate class of member: a counter of their own entries is kept for them — 433,053. How exactly the promotion to full author happens is not described in official documentation on the pages we opened.
The agreement accepted at registration is short — four paragraphs, the "üyelik sözleşmesi" dated "son güncelleme: haziran 2025" (last updated June 2025). Its substance: the data is used only for the operation of the platform and is not passed to third parties, except at the demand of authorized bodies; the administration may change an author's status or end membership without warning; the fate of entries after an account is deleted is decided by Uludağ Sözlük; the author cannot claim ownership of what is published and is personally responsible for the content.
What you can publish
The basic unit is a short entry under a topic. There is a separate image gallery; the app describes it as "uludağ sözlük galeri, türkiye'nin en büyük insan eli ile oluşturulmuş resim galerisidir" — the largest image gallery in Turkey assembled by human hands. That is the platform's claim about itself, without a measurement.
Precise limits — the maximum length of an entry, the size of an image, a list of forbidden topics — are not on the pages we opened. The agreement states the prohibition in general terms: "yasalara aykırı veya başkasına zarar veren içerikler kabul edilmez" — content that contravenes the law or harms others is not accepted.
How to grow
The promotion mechanics here are communal, not algorithmic. Entries are rated by voting — the platform's vote counter has passed 42.6 million, on average 606 votes per author. There is a points system, "ulupuan", and public rankings: the most popular author, the author with the most points, the most active of the week, those who added images most often. There is "ukte" — a request mechanic: someone asks for a topic to be written up, someone fulfils it, and the leaders by fulfilled "ukte" also make it into the rankings.
We found no advertising office: the page uludagsozluk.com/reklam/ answers with a 404 error, and there is no advertisers' section in the footer. The only channel of contact is a form with the subjects "üyelik", "şikayet/istek", "entry şikayet", "başlık şikayet" and two email addresses; the same page warns that the IP address is recorded and the message is not passed on to the author of the entry.
Path to monetization
The platform does not pay authors. Neither a reward programme, nor a paid subscription, nor donations are on the pages we opened — not on the statistics page, not in the agreement, not in the app descriptions. The apps in both stores are marked as free, on the App Store as "Ücretsiz" with no in-app purchases.
What is more, the agreement expressly strips the author of property claims: "yayınlanan içerik üzerinde yazar mülkiyet hakkı talep edemez" — the author cannot claim ownership rights over published content.
Tools and automation
There is no official API in sight: no developer section in the navigation, no documentation subdomain, and in the footer only "eklentiler" (add-ons), "rss" and "webmasterlar-için-kaynaklar" (resources for webmasters), listed on a service page. Their contents do not open at separate addresses.
What is confirmed: the robots.txt file sets a crawl delay of 10 seconds for Bingbot and YandexBot and opens the site to the other robots, and gives the sitemap address there too. No third-party scheduling or analytics services with confirmed support for Uludağ Sözlük turned up.
Limits and rules
Moderation here is conspicuous and manual. The staff is small — 8 moderators and 21 authorized members for 372,855 participants — but the platform leans on community complaints: the "gammaz" have rankings of their own, "haftanın gammazları", "son 1 ayın en başarılı gammazları" — the most effective complainers of the week and of the month. There is also a list of "son uçurulan yazarlar" — the recently "flown away", that is, expelled authors.
The main legal restriction is stated in the agreement: the administration may change an author's status or end membership without warning, and after an account is deleted it decides itself whether the entries stay in the dictionary. The document describes no appeal procedure.
We found no rules on advertising and self-promotion in explicit form. This is an important gap: since there are no official advertising formats and no rules either, any commercial placement here is a matter of negotiation with the administration through the contact form, not a public procedure.
Who it's for
Uludağ Sözlük suits those who work with a Turkish audience and understand the sözlük format: short subjective entries, a rigid internal hierarchy, a high share of deletions. It is useful as a source of observations on the Turkish agenda — the "gündem" section and the lists of the most discussed topics are open without registration.
It does not suit direct promotion: there are no advertising formats, no published rules on self-promotion, and the author loses the rights to what is published under the agreement. Nor does it suit those who need predictable rules: a member's status can be changed without warning.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the founder is given as İsmail Alpen
The same name stands as the app developer on Google Play
source, checked 2026-07-28
the footer of every page contains “© copyright 2005 - 2026”
The start date is taken from the footer line
source, checked 2026-07-28
there is no self-description on the site; the only self-description was found in the mobile app listing: “uludağ sözlük 2005 yılından beri türk internetine değer katmış bir topluluktır”
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
the platform reports: 27,372,879 entries, 3,878,809 topics, 372,855 members, of them 70,451 authors and 204,062 “çaylak” (newcomers); 11,627 awaiting activation, 86,695 “silik”; 8 moderators and 21 “yetkili”; 42,682,730 votes
The platform's own open general statistics page
source, checked 2026-07-28
the platform reports 20,674,548 deleted entries and 1,285,572 deleted topics — comparable to the volume of content that remains
An indicator of the scale of moderation
source, checked 2026-07-28
Google Play (Turkish locale): “1 B+ İndirme” (more than a thousand installs), USK 12+, updated 14 June 2026. App Store: 3 ratings, average 5.0, rating 4+, size 29.4 MB
The Turkish “bin” means a thousand; these are store measurements, not the platform's
source, checked 2026-07-28
Getting started
registration requires a username, an email address, a password and a mobile phone number with a country code selector; confirmation by SMS; the alternative is signing in with Google
The registration form, the buttons “üyeliğimi onayla” and “yeni sms”
source, checked 2026-07-28
the registration form declares “yapay zeka ile anlık yazarlık kontrolü” — instant authorship checking by artificial intelligence
The mechanics of the check are not disclosed
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
a membership agreement of four sections, “son güncelleme: haziran 2025”: data is not passed to third parties except at the demand of authorities; the administration may change a status or end membership without warning; the author cannot claim ownership of what is published
The only official document about the rules found on the site
source, checked 2026-07-28
robots.txt sets Crawl-delay 10 for Bingbot and YandexBot and allows crawling to the other robots; the sitemap address is given
Direct reading of the file
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: tr
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
Catalogue section: all similar See also: catalogue index · region: Middle East · scheduler comparison · find by situation · platform restrictions