Wikipedia information page
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On Wikipedia,
bots
are computer-controlled user accounts performing various tasks in order to maintain the encyclopedia. Bots are used for many purposes, for instance removing obvious vandalism and archiving talk pages. All bots must be
approved
by
a special group
before they are put into use.
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A
bot
(a common nickname for
software robot
) is an automated tool that carries out repetitive and mundane tasks to maintain the
137,447
pages of the English Wikipedia. Bots are able to make edits very rapidly, but can disrupt Wikipedia if they are incorrectly designed or operated. For these reasons, a
bot policy
has been developed.
There are currently 0
bot tasks approved for use
on the English Wikipedia; however, not all approved tasks involve actively carrying out edits. Bots will leave messages on user talk pages if the action that the bot has carried out is of interest to that editor. Some bots can be excluded from leaving these messages by using the {{
bots
}} tags. There are 0 exclusion-compliant bots, which are listed in
this category
. There are
29
bots flagged with the "bot" flag right now (and over 400
former bots
). There is also a range of
tools
that allow semi-automated editing of large numbers of articles.
Bots have been used in the past to create large numbers of articles that were uploaded to Wikipedia within a short timeframe. Some technical problems were experienced and this led to the formulation of a bot policy, as well as a
restriction
on the automated, large-scale, creation of articles.
Wikipedia policy requires that bots be harmless and useful, have approval, use separate user accounts, and be operated responsibly.
The Bot Approvals Group (BAG) supervises and approves all bot-related activity from a technical and quality-control perspective on behalf of the English Wikipedia community. On the English Wikipedia, the right to
flag
a bot is limited to
bureaucrats
.
Running an automated bot on a separate account requires approval, which may be requested at
Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval
.
Some programming experience generally is needed to create a bot, and knowledge of
regular expressions
is useful for many editing tasks. However, some of the more user-friendly tools, such as
AutoWikiBrowser
or
JavaScript Wiki Browser
, can be used for some tasks.
The Chicken Scheme
, Common Lisp, Haskell, Java, Microsoft .NET, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby programming languages all have libraries available for creating bots.
Pywikibot
is a commonly used Python package developed specifically for creating MediaWiki bots.
If you have noticed a problem with a bot, have a complaint, or have a suggestion to make, you should contact the bot operator directly via their user talk page (or via the bot account's talk page). Bot operators
are expected to be responsive
to the community's concerns and suggestions, but please
assume good faith
and
don't panic
. Bugs and mistakes happen, and
we're all here to build an encyclopedia
.
If the bot is causing a significant problem, or the bot operator has not responded and the bot is still causing issues, several mechanisms are available to prevent further disruption. Many bots provide a
stop button
or means to disable the problematic task on their bot user page. This should be tried first, followed by a discussion of the issue with the bot operator. If no such mechanism is available (or if urgent action is needed), leave a message at the
administrators' noticeboard
requesting a block for a malfunctioning bot. Per the noticeboard's guideline, you are required to notify the bot operator of the discussion taking place at the noticeboard.
If you are concerned that a bot is operating
outside the established consensus
for its task, discuss the issue with the bot operator first, or try
other forms of dispute resolution
(
BAG members
can act as neutral mediators on such matters). If you are concerned that a bot
no longer has consensus
for its task, you may
formally appeal or ask for re-examination
of a bot's approval.
While it is easy to
hide all bots from your watchlist
, there is no way of hiding specific bots through user preferences or default watchlist settings. However, it is possible with a
user script
by following these steps.
Main steps
- Go to your
Special:MyPage/common.js
page (or your
Special:MyPage/skin.js
), and add the following line (
diff
):
importScript
(
'User:UncleDouggie/smart_watchlist.js'
);
// Backlink: [[User:UncleDouggie/smart_watchlist]]
- Go to
Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc
, check both the 'Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist' and 'Use non-JavaScript interface' boxes, and click 'Save'.
- Remember to
bypass your browser's cache
.
- Go to your watchlist. There should be a box with several options. Tick the 'Enable hide user buttons' box. This will let you hide specific bots (and users) from your watchlist.
- Note:
You might want to untick the 'Enable hide user buttons' box after you ignore a bot to ensure that you don't accidentally click 'hide user' when browsing your watchlist.
Optional steps
- If you find the 'Enable hide user buttons' box annoying, go to your
Special:MyPage/common.css
page (or
Special:MyPage/skin.css
) and add the following line (
diff
):
#
SmartWatchlistOptions
{
display
:
none
!important
;}
- Remember to
bypass your browser's cache
.
- If you want to show the box again, for example to reset your ignore list, go to your
Special:MyPage/common.css
page and remove the line you added in optional step #1 (remembering to again
bypass your browser's cache
). Redoing optional steps #1 and #2 will hide the box again.
While you are completely free to ignore any bots (or users) you want, it is a good idea to only ignore bots with well-defined tasks, which you trust to not make any mistakes.
There is no way of hiding
AutoWikiBrowser
(AWB) edits through user preferences or default watchlist settings. However, it is possible with a
user script
by following these steps:
Steps
- Go to your
Special:MyPage/common.js
page (or your
Special:MyPage/skin.js
), and add the following two lines (
diff
):
importScript
(
'User:Evad37/Watchlist-hideAWB.js'
);
// Backlink: [[User:Evad37/Watchlist-hideAWB]]
var
awbHiddenByDefault
=
true
;
- Bypass your browser's cache
.
Any edit with "AWB" in its edit summary will now default to hidden for you. You may reveal them by clicking on the "show AWB" tab at the top of your watchlist (next to "Special page" for Monobook skin, or in the "More" dropdown for Vector skin).
Notes:
- If you leave out
var
awbHiddenByDefault
=
true
;
, AWB edits will be shown by default, but you will have the option of hiding AWB edits by clicking on the "hide AWB" tab at the top of your watchlist.
- While you are completely free to ignore AWB edits, remember that many of them will contain substantial changes from human editors, not just
minor edits
from bots or
meatbots
.
- When hiding edits with a script, earlier edits can be forced to appear. Using the
Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent
preference
option is necessary to see other non-hidden watchlist hits for a page.
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Template:Bots
It's rare that a mainspace article needs to not be edited by a specific bot. No article needs to stop all bots from editing, since antivandal bots such as
ClueBot NG
need to be able to edit all mainspace articles. The template {{
bots
}} can stop a bot from editing an article under the rare circumstance it's needed.
Some examples of bots are:
Articles
Categories
Meta
Barnstar
Userbox and top icon
Automated and semi-automated editing tools
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