Wikipedia:Bots

(Redirected from Help:Bot)

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.

Current 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.

Bot Name Owner Function
BattyBot (t · c) GoingBatty Citation fixes, removing {{orphan}} templates for article with over 2 incoming links
Bot873 (t · c) Operator873 Talk page archives
Cewbot (t · c) Kanashimi Fixing broken anchors, adding Template:Unsigned template, and Template:Article issues template, removing Template:Ill where there is an existing article.
ChenzwBot (t · c) Chenzw Anti-vandalism bot
Citation bot (t · c) Smith609 Citation fixes
Cyberbot I (t · c) Cyberpower678 Edits Adminstats and dates maintenance tags.
FerienBot (t · c) Ferien WPCleaner, currently fixing Check Wikipedia error 61
FerienBot3 (t · c) Ferien Substituting templates
InternetArchiveBot (t · c) Cyberpower678 Retrieves archived copies of dead links.
Pi bot (t · c) Mike Peel Fix Template:Commons category links.
RussBot (t · c) R'n'B Double redirects and manual disambiguation
SassoBot (t · c) Djsasso Talk page archives, category redirects, cleans sandbox
Xqbot (t · c) xqt Cosmetic changes, fixing double redirects
ZabesBot (t · c) Zabe interwiki, double redirects

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:

Bot Name Owner Uses
CommonsDelinker (t · c) Siebrand Commons based image bot
Eptabot (t · c) Eptalon Updating Wikipedia:RecentChanges/TOTW
FehuBot (t · c) Fehufanga DYK update process
FerienBot2 (t · c) Ferien Adding/removing protection templates from pages
Hazard-Bot (t · c) Hazard-SJ Cleans sandbox
HydrizBot (t · c) Hydriz Update Database reports
JJMC89 bot (t · c) JJMC89 Replace BSicons

Bot approvals

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.

Global bots

Bot help requests

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.

Related pages

  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