Wikipedia bots are Internet bots (computer programs) that perform simple, repetitive tasks on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

. One prominent example of an internet bot used in Wikipedia is Lsjbot, which has generated millions of short articles across various language editions of Wikipedia.

Activities

Computer programs, called

bots The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

, have often been used to automate simple and repetitive tasks, such as correcting common misspellings and stylistic issues, or to start articles, such as geography entries, in a standard format from statistical data. Additionally, there are bots designed to automatically notify editors when they make common editing errors (such as unmatched quotes or unmatched parentheses). Anti-vandalism bots like ClueBot NG, created in 2010 are programmed to detect and revert

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

quickly. Bots are able to indicate edits from particular accounts or

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

ranges, as occurred at the time of the shooting down of the MH17 jet incident in July 2014 when it was reported edits were made via IPs controlled by the Russian government. Bots on Wikipedia must be approved before activation. A bot once created up to 10,000 articles on the Swedish Wikipedia in a day. According to Andrew Lih, the current expansion of Wikipedia to millions of articles would be difficult to envision without the use of such bots. The Cebuano, Swedish and Waray Wikipedias are known to have high numbers of bot-created content. One notable development in recent years has been the use of bots to perform vandalism-fighting chores in place of human labor. According to recent estimates, 50% of all vandalism is already eliminated by bots. Human patrollers have congratulated the bots on their accuracy and speed in a number of remarks posted on their talk pages.

Bot policy

The best method for reducing hazards without compromising functionality is Wikipedia's bot policy. Bots that update metatags and fix spelling "must be harmless and useful, have approval, use separate user accounts, and be operated responsibly," according to the guidelines. Wikipedia:Bot policy Only once their application has been accepted by the platform and they have been publicly registered online can Wikipedia bots go live.

Interactions

On Wikipedia, bots typically engage in more reciprocal and prolonged conversations than humans. However, bots in various cultural contexts may act differently, much like people. According to research, even comparatively "dumb" bots have the potential to produce complex relationships, which has important consequences for the study of artificial intelligence. Comprehending the factors that influence bot-bot interactions is essential for effective performance.

Types of bots

One way to sort bots is by what activities they perform: * content creation, such as by

procedural generation In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated content and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. I ...

* fixing errors, such as by

copy editing Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (" copy") to improve quality and readability, as well as ensuring that a text is free of errors in grammar, style, and accuracy. '' The C ...

or addressing

link rot Link rot (also called link death, link breaking, or reference rot) is the phenomenon of hyperlinks tending over time to cease to point to their originally targeted file, web page, or server due to that resource being relocated to a new address ...

* adding connectors, such as with

hyperlinks In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to data by a user's clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with ...

to content elsewhere * tagging content with labels * repairing vandalism, such as ClueBot NG *

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts record keeping as well as general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include Records managem ...

, updating reports * archiving old discussions or tasks * moderation systems to combat against spam or misconduct *

recommender system A recommender system (RecSys), or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing ''system'' with terms such as ''platform'', ''engine'', or ''algorithm'') and sometimes only called "the algorithm" or "algorithm", is a subclass of information fi ...

s to encourage users * notifications, such as with

push technology Push technology, also known as server Push, refers to a communication method, where the communication is initiated by a server rather than a client. This approach is different from the " pull" method where the communication is initiated by a clien ...

and pull technology * repairing broken external links, such a
InternetArchiveBot

References

External links

* Wikipedia:Bots * Wikipedia:Bot policy * Wikipedia:History of Wikipedia bots * Wikidata item for Wikipedia:Bots, listing all Wikipedia:Bots project pages {{Wikipedia, state=expanded Internet bots

Bots The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...