Wikipedia:Bots

This page is a policy on the Simple English Wikipedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard idea that all users should normally follow. When changing this page (except for minor errors like typos), please check that other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to suggest a change.

Shortcuts WP:BOT WP:BOTS WP:B

Bots are automated scripts or processes which perform jobs on Wikipedia. Usually, they do jobs which would take a long time to do without the bot.

Bots perform their jobs under a different user name than the owner, so that it is easy to tell them apart. Also, bot edits are hidden from pages like Special:Recentchanges to keep them from flooding the list. To see the bot edits, manually add hidebots=0 to your query string, or click "show bot edits" at the top of Newest changes.

The most popular type of bot is called the Python Wikipedia Robot Framework or "pywikibot" for short. See also this list of other frameworks for creating bots.

These users have been given a "bot flag" and are approved to perform tasks. See Special:Listusers/bot for a current list of fully approved bots. All bots should be approved (with or without a bot flag) before editing. During their approval process (see below), bots may make up to 50 edits to show how they will be working. Any bot not approved (with or without a flag) or found to be making edits it was not approved for may be blocked.

Some other bots make occasional edits here, but do not have a bot flag. These bots do not usually edit often enough for them to need the bot flag. Also, there may be other reasons for their edits to not be marked as a bot edit. The following bots are approved to edit without a bot flag:

To get approved to run a bot, you should be a good contributor first. Describe your bot on the talk page, create a new account for it, run some tests for a short time, and get agreement from other users that the bot's use is a good idea. Once that is done, your bot may be given a bot flag by a bureaucrat.

• This wiki uses the standard bot policy, and allows global bots and automatic approval of certain types of bots. Other bots should apply on this page.

If you have a task which you think a bot can help with, contact one of the bot owners, or make a request on the talk page.

1. en:Wikipedia:Bot requests
2. meta:Interwiki bot
3. meta:Interwiki bot/Getting started
4. meta:Category:Pywikipedia
5. sourceforge:projects/pywikipediabot
6. sourceforge:projects/dotnetwikibot
7. Category:Wikipedia bots