A bot (short for robot) is any automated process, program, or script that makes it easier for a user to make tedious or repetitive edits and actions on a community. When a bot is running in quick succession, the recent changes log can sometimes be overtaken, making it harder to spot more substantial edits by regular users. Giving an account a "bot flag" will hide these edits from the recent changes list (although any editor can still choose to see them by clicking "Show bots").
On Fandom, a user who wishes to use a bot should set up a separate account for it, then talk with an administrator to ask whether they approve of the creation of a bot. After receiving approval, the bot owner or an administrator can contact Fandom Staff for the bot to be flagged for that wiki. On a few wikis, bureaucrats also have the ability to flag an account as a bot locally. Having this status causes "Bot" to appear next to the username on the bot's user-page.
In addition to local bots, global bots with a lot of edits, like User:FANDOM and User:Wikia, are marked in red. Even if the bot rights of a profile are taken away, the profile shall be colored red like before, which will help differentiate bot edits from regular edits at a later point of time.
For instructions on using the bot and other doubts not resolved here, see w:Help:Bots.
Other uses[]
While bots are normally used to perform repetitive edits, bot owners can also perform regular edits with their bot accounts when they want to keep their activity hidden. This is usually avoided since it can be missed when being proofread by another editor.
On certain communities, bureaucrats are also able to flag themselves and other users (regular accounts) as bots, often for cleanup purposes or testing. It should be noted this ability is generally not handed out.
Requesting a bot[]
This page is also used for seeking permission to use a bot. While any person can request for a bot, they need the approval of an administrator (it is not an election in which all administrators participate, the approval of just one administrator is sufficient). Consequently, administrators themselves do not need any one else's permission.
Please contact Fandom Staff to request a bot flag for a specific account.
- If you are an administrator, please make an edit using your admin account to that bot's user page, to show your ownership and approval of it.
- If you are not an administrator, your request should include a link to a public discussion that shows the local admininistrators approve the use and flagging of the bot.
Format[]
==== ~~~~ ==== ; Discussion
Write the reasons for requesting a bot.
Administrators are supposed to discuss with them about the need and duration for the same, but other uses can also put their points. Unless specified otherwise, bot rights are not supposed to expire.
Pending requests[]
Successful requests[]
Unsuccessful requests[]
Rules[]
In addition to following all general guidelines, bots must also follow these guidelines:
- Identify the profile.:
- Its user profile should identify the account as a bot.
- Its user profile should identify the owner of the bot account.
- Its talk page or message wall should redirect/link to its owner's user talk page or message wall for questions.
- Owner is responsible for every edit made. Owner is expected to review every edit, just as if they were editing the pages manually. Quality should not be sacrificed for speed, and all changes should be reviewed before saving.
- Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the owner to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale.
- Its user profile should encourage users to notify admin if its automated edits are causing damage to the community. Administrators can temporarily block the bot account and lift the block after the causes for the damaging edits are understood and fixed.
The rules 1.1, 1.2, and 4 are easily handled by the Template: Bot.
Other permissions[]
- Since the trust of administrators is sufficient to get a bot, similar to that of Rollback/Threadmoderator rights, the user should be given these rights as well if not already so.
- The bot account can also receive the same user rights as the main account to perform their tasks better (like modifying comments and protected pages). Giving bureaucrat rights to bots is pointless since bureaucrats do not have any special priviledges on editing pages.
In essence, the bot owner's main and bot account both receive same user rights with atleast the rollback and threadmoderator rights. Bot accounts with administrator and bureacratic (added since main accounts can also be flagged as bots temporarily) permissions should not change user rights or any user since that activity becomes hidden.
General cleanup[]
It is advised that bot users (preferably administrators) perform general cleanup regularly. In addition to checking the "Apply general fixes" checkmark in "Find and replace", the changes mentioned in the following table should be added in advanced "Advanced settings" in the given order. The best list to apply these changes is "Recent Changes", which is found in "Special page" section. Please avoid changing stuff where it is intentionally used, like the following table.
Note: Please go through the pages edited by your bot's "General Fixes" edits, and undo any wrong edits which break formatting or introduce issues.
| From | To | Times | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
<br/> |
<br /> |
1 | Standard practice |
<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
| *, | ,* | 3 | Space should be after comma, not vice versa |
| ** | * | 5 | Removes double (or even more) spaces |
| ??? | ?? | 3 | Removes double (or even more) line breaks Do not replace ?? by ?, use what is written |
| .*? | .? | 3 | Removes spaces after the end of the paragraph |
| “ | " | 1 | Standard characters for wiki - they creep in while copy pasting from other sources |
| ” | |||
| ’ | ' | ||
| ==?? | ==? | 3 | Removes empty line after headings, wiki MoS |
- Note: ? and * represent new line and space in the list. Please replace it as such. They are written as such mark to be visible, instead of a white space.
Bugs[]
As of October 2023
- Editing pages using bot account on browser does not mark them as bot edits sometimes, and as such these edits show up in recent changes.
- AWB cannot be used to edit blog posts or maps.
| Policies and guidelines | ||
|---|---|---|
| Content | Interaction | User rights |
|
Bots
| ||
| Simplified ruleset | ||