Help:Bots
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Important note: When you edit this page, you agree to release your contribution into the public domain. If you don't want this or can't do this because of license restrictions, please don't edit. This page is one of the
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A bot is a computer program that automatically retrieves or updates wiki pages when it is executed. In general, bots are used for repetitive maintenance tasks, whose volume and characteristics are too large to be performed manually by users.
Developing and executing bots is normally outside the role of normal users, requires programming experience and must be done in coordination with the wiki's admins.
By default, bot edits are hidden in Special:Recent changes.
Framework and interface for bot development
Bots do not access the wiki through the normal graphical user interface. MediaWiki has an API (Application Programming Interface) available for this purpose. An API is a protocol for standardised communication between two computer programs. Check
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki for more information.
To access a wiki through the API a bot must have a user account, which has been granted 'bot' permissions.
pywikipediabot
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki provides a framework for the development of bots, which are commonly used to perform maintenance tasks such as adding a footer to some categorized pages (
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki), adding some wikilinks (
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki), moving old contents of talk pages to subpages (
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki), editing categories (
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki), or managing templates (
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki).
The MassEditRegex extension
Extension:MassEditRegex provides an alternative way to perform mass edits using regular expressions, through a special page in the wiki. Only admins can normally use this extension.
See also
- REDIRECT Template:MediaWiki