Robots or bots are semi-automatic or automatic processes that interact with Wikiversity as though they were a human editor. They are used to manage systematic or boring tasks. Please read the guidelines below before designing and implementing any bot on Wikiversity.
A bot is something that can do repetitive tasks in a predictable fashion, and it can be done in such a way as to be healthy for the community.
The operation of a bot requires approval. Any user can submit a request at Wikiversity:Bots/Status to obtain bot status, which prevents cluttering recent changes. Bot status is given by Bureaucrats about seven days after the request has been made, provided there has been no objection to the request by another user. The decision lies with the bureaucrats.
The bot flag may be removed after 2 or more years of bot inactivity. The bot operator will be notified on their talk page and the flag will be re-granted if the operator expresses an interest in resuming bot activity.
The burden of proof is on the bot-maker to demonstrate that the bot:
- is harmless
- is useful
- is not a server hog
- has been approved
Bot operators must:
- create a separate account for bot operation.
- indicate on their bot's user page:
- who the owner is.
- discuss with other Wikiversity editors before running their bot. Any bot request has to reach consensus to be fulfilled.
- log in with their own user account when talking to other users.
Bot operators should:
- choose a name containing the word "bot" so that editors realize they are dealing with an automaton.
Bot operators may:
- run their bot without the bot status only during its request for approval and if asked so by another editor to check how the bot works. When testing, bot operators must delay 60 seconds between edits.
Bot operators are encouraged to:
- Release their bot's source code.
- Program their bot to stop editing if someone leaves a message on its talk page. This can be checked by looking for the "You have new messages..." banner in the HTML for the edit form.
- Program their bot to stop editing if they detect that they have logged out. This can be checked by looking for bot's name in the HTML for the edit form. If the bot is not logged in, then the bot's name won't be listed in the HTML. Bots running anonymously may be blocked.
Edit rate guidelines[edit source]
Bots running without a bot flag should edit at intervals of over 1 minute. Once they have been authorised and appropriately flagged, they should operate at an absolute minimum interval of 5 seconds (12 edits per minute). Bots should try to avoid running during the busiest hours, as they rapidly use server resources that should be reserved for human readers and editors. During these hours, they should operate at intervals of 20 seconds (3 edits per minute) to conserve resources.
Bots' editing speeds can be automatically adjusted based on server load (slave database server lag) by appending an extra parameter to the query string of each requested URL; see mw:Manual:Maxlag parameter.
Bot functionalities[edit source]
Although a bot can be assigned a sysop flag, these requests are discouraged. The Curator flag may be assigned to a bot operated by a Custodian.
Currently flagged bots[edit source]
|Name of the bot||Contributions||Operator||Functions||Last activity|
|User:CommonsDelinker||Contribs||Siebrand||prevention of broken image links||2020-03-23|
|User:JackBot||Contribs||JackPotte||Special:DoubleRedirects automatically and Special:UncategorizedPages semiautomatically||2020-03-23|
|User:MaintenanceBot||Contribs||Dave Braunschweig||Various maintenance tasks.||2020-03-25|
|User:MediaWiki default||Contribs||MediaWiki default||setup edits in MediaWiki: namespace; the script is part of MediaWiki.||????-??-??|
|User:MediaWiki message delivery||Contribs||MediaWiki message delivery||meta:MassMessage delivery||2020-03-23|
|User:Mu301Bot||Contribs||Mu301||Category watcher, sandbox, and other maintenance tasks||2019-12-09|
|User:タチコマ robot||Contribs||White Cat||Interwiki linking, double redirect fixing, commons delinking||2017-07-04|
- User:MediaWiki default is the username used by a system maintenance script. It is not a bot and is unaffected by blocks.
- Due to the bug described at phabricator:T36873 the activity of this script no longer appears in Special:Contributions. It is not known when it was last run, or how often it has been used.
The manually updated list above may not be current. Check bots group user list which is complete and see contribs for each bot.
Request help from a bot[edit source]
Do you have a task that would benefit from a bot's help? Post a request at Wikiversity:Colloquium.
Requests for bot status[edit source]
Are you interested in helping Wikiversity by operating a bot? Please see Wikiversity:Bots/Status