Project:Bots

Bots are automated or semi-automated processes that edit pages with reduced or no direct human supervision. Because bots may potentially strain server resources or accidentally disrupt the project, bots must follow special policies and guidelines. Additionally, as bots can be used to intentionally create vast amounts of damage very quickly, bots editing very quickly without permission (a bot "flag") or in a questionable manner, will be immediately blocked. Running a bot on a normal (human) account is not allowed, a bot must have its own account, generally including the word "bot" in the name and preferably some way to connect it to the operator (e.g. User:RobBot operated by User:Robchurch). MediaWiki.org generally follows the policy stated at meta:Bot policy; however, as a development project, user trustworthiness and experience are of greatest importance and little to no discussion may take place before granting, or denying, a bot flag. Inactive bots may have their flags summarily removed for security purposes, the bot flag is merely intended to indicate that the bot is allowed to make relatively high speed direct edits for the purposes for which it was approved. Because this is a development project, the normal rules for bots on other WMF projects may not apply here, especially to developers.

There is some use for bots on mediawiki.org, but it is not the same as on community content based WMF projects, such as Wikipedia. Please post a request at Project:Requests if you plan to run a bot on MediaWiki.org. You may also speak to a bureaucrat directly via talk page or IRC, though requests from new, inexperienced, or unknown users will generally be denied.

Registered bots

A full list of approved ("flagged") bots can be viewed here: Special:Listusers/bot. Note that "MediaWiki default" is the account used internally by the MediaWiki software when it needs to make content changes as part of the installation/upgrade process, and is not a real bot and is not a blockable (although the account has been ostensibly blocked on some projects as an inactive or unapproved bot, this should have no effect). Also note that at times, the bot flag may be used by developers and other highly trusted users as a Flood flag.

Active bots

This list does not include any declared bots that are active but do not have a flag

Hazard-Bot - Operator: Hazard-SJ - periodic clearing of Project:Sandbox. Flagged on: 13 May 2012
ReleaseNotesBot - Operator: TCipriani (WMF) - release changelog on different MediaWiki version. Flagged on: 5 January 2019
Bawolff bot - Operator: Bawolff - Updates Module:ExtensionJson. Flagged on: 20 May 2019

Bots defined by the software

Abuse filter - This is an automated account that performs actions specified by Extension:AbuseFilter . It will automatically block users triggering filters configured to block.
MediaWiki message delivery - Account used by Extension:MassMessage .
FuzzyBot - This special user account is part of Extension:Translate . This account is part of the MediaWiki software and it is not owned by any user. It performs automatic tasks as a result of the actions of the Translation administrators
Flow talk page manager - This account is used by the Extension:Flow software to initialize Flow boards.

Inactive bots

Bot inactivity may not mean the bot is not needed, bots belonging to trusted and active users may be inactive for extended periods of time. This list only includes bots that are or were flagged. Bots active elsewhere on Wikimedia Foundation Projects may have SUL accounts on MediaWiki.org but may have never edited.

RobBot - Operator: Rob Church. Flagged by the operator on 25 April 2006.
RobBot was created and flagged in preparation for performing various bot tasks during the revival of MediaWiki.org as a feasible documentation alternative to Meta, although no tasks were ever devised for it and no code was thus written; it never performed automated edits. robchurch | talk 11:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inactive since: 16 July 2007 / Operator inactive since: 4 March 2008
FearowBot - Operator: TheFearow - Apparently an interwiki bot. Flagged on 15 July 2007, removed on 18 July 2007 for malfunctioning, reflagged on 24 July 2007.
Inactive since: 15 July 2007 (less than 8 hours after getting the flag the first time) / Operator inactive since: 19 October 2008.
DuesenBot - Operator: Duesentrieb - Automatic updates to the Extension Matrix . Flagged on: 6 March 2007.
Broken. :(

Inactive since: 11 June 2008
Diego Grez Bot - Operated by a user who has since vanished. Apparently for language tags and language categories. Flagged on: 7 July 2010
Inactive since: 13 July 2010 (6 days after being flagged)
ExtensionListBot - Operator: Benjamin_Garn - Update the AutoExtensionList , an interim measure while the Extension_Matrix was unmaintained due to a broken bot.
Inactive since: 2 March 2009 / Operator inactive since: 12 April 2011
MiszaBot - an archive bot, see w:User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo. Operator is Misza13, but user is inactive on all projects, so malfunctions may require a replacement bot. Flagged on: 27 May 2009.
Bot dead.
MyBot - Operator: IAlex, Flagged on: 8 September 2010
Inactive since: 16 June 2015
KrenairBot - Operator: Krenair, Flagged on: 6 May 2012
Inactive since: 14 August 2012
(1.VSNCT)Bot - Operator: TeleComNasSprVen, Flagged on: Template:2011
Inactive since: 8 February 2012
SieBot - Operator: Siebrand, Flagged on: 10 May 2008
Inactive since: 19 January 2010
Extension matrix bot - Operator : Alterego, Flagged on: 10 May 2008
Inactive since: 16 October 2013
Ebrambot - Operator: Ebraminio, Flagged on: 10 November 2010
Globaly locked since: 25 December 2018
DougBot - Operator: Doug, Flagged on: 5 December 2011
Inactive since: 11 December 2011
Translation Notification Bot - Bot not working since: November 2018, so notifications probably don't work. Please ask question on T144780 ticket on phabricator. As of June 2020, this task is now performed by User:MediaWiki message delivery.

Bot flag as a flood flag

Analogous to m:Meta:Flood_flag, these are restricted to developers and other highly trusted users who have a real need for them, these are not bots

Peachey88 (Flood), an alternate account of Peachey88, has a bot flag to avoid flooding the recent changes log. Apparently mainly for LiquidThreads maintenance tasks, this is a human account with a bot flag because of the frequency it edits. Flagged on: 14 May 2011.

Requests for bot jobs

Here are some things that it would be useful to set up a bot to deal with. If adding to this list then please include your signature (~~~~) so that any potential bot writers can contact you for more info if needed: This page is not actively monitored so things may languish here for a while without response.

Requests for ongoing bot jobs

A bot that checks all links from this site to meta (both using the meta: interwiki prefix, and by full URL [1]), and if that page is a redirect to MediaWiki.org replaces the external link with the correct internal one. Ideally (though it's not a requirement) the bot should follow redirects if the meta redirect is out of date. Even more ideally, it would fix meta to skip the redirect too, but perhaps that is too much to ask of a single bot. --HappyDog 19:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for one off bot jobs

Replace raw tabbed window markup with templates
- Special:Search/insource:mw-gadget-tabbedwindow lists the pages which use raw HTML instead of the dedicated templates {{TabbedWindowBegin }} and {{TabbedWindowEnd }}; they should be updated to use the template, both for self-documentation and to make it easier to improve the tabbed window interface in the future. Typically, these are dedicated subpages using the same pattern, so it would involve replacing the first two lines and the last line of the page (but I haven't reviewed if every single page follows the same pattern). Thanks! --Tgr (talk) 02:33, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User groups

Requests for permissions