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.