This is a small guide tobot-relatedterms of art on Wikipedia. For convenience, links to other definitions on this page areitalicized.
Each definition has ananchor, which can then be used to create links to that definition. For example, to link to the definition of abot op, you can use[[WP:BOTDICT#bot op]] to createWP:BOTDICT#bot op, which will take you directly to the definition. Each listed variant (e.g.bot operator) has a corresponding anchor (e.g.#bot operator).
Two-factor authentication (2FA), here using aTOTP token supplied by an app on a phone or other personal device. This increases account security, but interferes with automated login by a bot, so abot passwords orOAuth is normally used to allow the bot to authenticate.
An API can refer to anyapplication programming interfaces, but usually refers to MediaWiki'saction API, which is a way for bots to communicate with websites (such as Wikipedia) and perform operations on them.See alsomw:API.
assert / assertion
Usually refers tomw:API:Assert, used to ensure a bot only edits while logged in.
assisted editing / semi-automated editing
Refers to editing that is assisted by variousscripts and tools (such asAutoWikiBrowser). Typically, a human editor is presented with each edit and must individually approve it before it is submitted. It can also refer to edits made via scripts such asTwinkle, which uses pre-filled boilerplate forms for 'standard' nominations and notices.See alsoautomated editing.
automated editing
Refers to editing that is done automatically, without human review, i.e. editing done by bots.See alsoassisted editing.
Anautomated tool that carries out repetitive and mundane tasks to maintain Wikipedia's articles and other pages. Short forrobot. Manytypes of bots exist. Also commonly used to refer to abot account.See alsoWP:BOTS.
bot account
A bot's user account. It should typically have the word BOT in its account name, or otherwise be descriptive of the task, and clearly indicate who thebot operator running the account is.See alsoWP:BOTACC.
Members of theBAG. BAG members are trusted to understand Wikipedia'sbot policy and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, bureaucrats, and editors alike. While some BAG members are alsoadmins orbureaucrats, the role of BAG members should not be confused with that of bureaucrats or admins.See also theBAG member list.
bot flag
The term has two distinct but related meanings:
Membership in thebot group, which raises some limits in theAPI and grants some additional rights, including the right to use the bot flag as in sense 2.See alsoWP:BOTFLAG.
Used to flag individual edits as "bot" edits, which causes them to be hidden by default onRecentChanges and allows them to be hidden onwatchlists. Some bot edits are not marked with the bot flag, such as bots designed to notify users of ongoing discussions.
bot coder / bot maintainer
A user who writes and maintains the code of the bot. Bot coders will often, but not always, be thebot op for the bot they code.
bot op / bot operator / bot owner
A user who operates and is responsible for the bot's edits. Will often, but not always, be the same person as thebot coder.
BotPasswords / bot password
An alternative username and password that can be used to log into an account via the APIaction=login with restricted user rights available. Seemw:Manual:Bot passwords for details. If possible,OAuth should be used instead.
BRFA / (Bot) Requests for Approval
Refers to theprocess by which bots are approved.Bot operators will detail the task for which they request approval, along with technical information about the bot. The process is open and all editors (including unregistered users) are welcomed to comment. BRFAs evaluate both whether consensus exists for the task, and if the bot's technical implementation is sound.See alsoWP:BOTAPPROVAL,WP:BRFA, andWP:BAGG § Guide to BRFAs.
bot policy
The English Wikipediabot policy. Othereditions of Wikipedia and otherWikimedia projects have their own bot policies, which may significantly differ from the English Wikipedia's policy. See alsoWP:BOTPOL.
A user with the ability to flag accounts as belonging to admins or bots, among other things.BAG members will advise bureaucrats on whether proposedbots andadminbots should be flagged as such. Bureaucrats technically make the final determination of whether the proper process was followed, or if consensus supports such a task, but will usually defer to BAG's judgement.See alsoWP:BUREAUCRAT.
Checkwiki
Checkwiki is a project that helps clean upwikicode and other errors in the source code of Wikipedia.See alsoWP:CHECKWIKI.
cluttering / flooding
Edits made on Wikipedia appear on several special pages so they can be monitored and reviewed. Editing on a large scale will cause multiple pages to appear inSpecial:RecentChanges andSpecial:Watchlist in a short amount of time, and the changes will also be present inpage histories. This is known asflooding orcluttering, and is one of the main reasons for the existence ofWP:COSMETICBOT. Thebot flag is designed to reduce the impact of flooding onSpecial:RecentChanges andSpecial:Watchlist, but will never completely eliminate it.Meat bots do not have access to such a flag.
A context-sensitive edit is one that could be either valid or invalid, depending on the situation. For instance, changing "Dr. Suess" to "Dr. Seuss" by bot would be a bad idea – while "Dr. Suess" is a likely typo forDr. Seuss, it could also be a correct reference toDr. Hans Eduard Suess.See alsoWP:CONTEXTBOT.
cosmetic bot
Abot which makescosmetic edits. Purely cosmetic bots are typically forbidden perWP:COSMETICBOT, but bots can be allowed to make certain cosmetic changes by consensus or in addition to their primary task.
cosmetic edit / substantive edit
"WP:SUBSTANTIVE" redirects here. For the guidelines on titling royalty articles, seeWP:NCSUBSTANTIVE. For the essay on geographical content, seeWP:GEOSUBSTANTIVE.
Acosmetic edit is one that doesn't change the output HTML or readable text of a page. By contrast, asubstantive edit is one that does change the output HTML or readable text of a page. Cosmetic edits will almost always beminor edits. They may improve thefriendliness and consistency of the wikitext, althoughedit warring on presentation (e.g. changing|parameter=value to| parameter = value, or changing templates fromsingle line tomultiline, and vice versa) is generally not acceptable.
The termcosmetic refers to changing the appearance of thewikitext without changing the appearance of the output page.See alsoWP:COSMETICBOT.
cron
Acron is a Unix program used for scheduling a bot task to be automatically run in periodic intervals, even if the bot operator is asleep.
Editor-hostilewikitext refers to wikitext that is technically correct, and does not on its own cause errors, but which causes eithera) code readability issues,b) poor interactions with common tools, orc)unpleasant surprises when edited. For example
a)prêt-à-porter renders asprêt-à-porter, but is very hard to quickly understand while reading the edit window.
b) A citation template formatted like
{{citejournal|issue=21|last=Smith|year=2008|title=Article of Things|journal=Journal of Things|volume=20|first=John|pages=156|doi=10.12345/654456}}
is harder to understand than one formatted like
{{cite journal |last=Smith |first=John |year=2008 |title=Article of Things |journal=Journal of Things |volume=20 |issue=21 |pages=156 |doi=10.12345/654456}}
due to the poor parameter order and lack of whitespace structure, even if they render the same. The improved parameter order makes it easier to see what information is present (or missing), and the improved |parameter=value whitespace structure creates an easily recognizable visual pattern while also improvingline wrapping in the edit window.
c)<br> and<br /> render the same. However, whilewikicode-highlightingscripts will correctly recognize"well-formed" elements like<br />, they will often not understand that<br> means the same thing.
d) If[[Category:Physicists|Sir Isaac Newton]] is present twice on the same page, this is treated exactly as if it was present only once. However someone may decide to change thesortkey for the article to something like[[Category:Physicists|Newton, Isaac]] and forget about theother sortkey present on the page, and cause a sortkeycollision.
Fixing editor-hostile wikitext constitutes acosmetic edit and is typically not allowed by bots, although some cases (such as collisions) may be deemed editor-hostile enough to be treated by bot if they cross thethreshold of usefulness.
A human (made ofmeat, unlike a robot) editor that makes a large amount of repetitive edits from their own account, often withsemi-automated tools, much like a bot would. For the purpose of dispute resolution, it is irrelevant if edits are made by actual bots or by meatbots.See alsoWP:MEATBOT.
A minor edit is one where only small and superficial differences are made. Examples include typographical corrections, fixes to formatting, and adding dates to maintenance categories. Minor edits should require no review and be uncontroversial.See alsoWP:MINOR.Cosmetic edits will almost always be minor edits.
null bot
A bot that makesnull edits. Bots typically don't need approval for this, unless making null edits in large numbers that would affect server performance, or requiring access to specialbot-onlyAPI features.
null edit
Anull edit is an edit where the page is saved without changes. This is sometimes done to force a server-side cache purge and force the page to be re-rendered from scratch. This causes category sorting, "what links here" results, how templates are rendered, and so on to be updated.See alsoWP:NULL.
OAuth
OAuth is a mechanism for a bot to take action as if it were a different user (or on behalf of different user) without having to know the user's password. For example,OAbot willask users to allow OAuth access, so it can make editsas the user. It also provides the ability to restrict the user rights available to the bot when logged in in this manner.Seemw:Help:OAuth andmw:OAuth/For Developers for details specific to OAuth on Wikipedia. A bot will typically use anowner-only consumer to simplify the process.
PAWS
PAWS is a WMF service that allows bot operators to execute Python code in aJupyter Notebook setup.
Pywikibot
Pywikibot is aPython library for developing bot applications. It also contains a number of standardbuilt-in scripts. It is arguably the most used bot framework.
spectrum / threshold of usefulness
The "spectrum of usefulness" is a general concept useful in evaluating bot tasks. A proposed bot task will typically involve improvements to articles (even if only from a technical perspective), such as improvingHTML5 compliance, makingcosmetic improvements, fixing obvious mistakes, fixingeditor-hostile wikitext, adding missing information, or improving themachine-readability of an article. However, thebot policy requires that bots are considered useful while not consuming resources unnecessarily. Each proposed task falls somewhere on the spectrum, and must cross a certain "threshold" to be deemed useful enough to the community. While cosmetic edits are typically on the lower end of usefulness, they will sometimes be useful enough to have community consensus to be done on their own. Likewise, while substantive edits are typically on the higher end of usefulness, doing them with a bot will sometimes createmore problems than it solves.
Toolforge is WMF-hosted server environment commonly used for hosting automatic bots.
Twinkle
Twinkle is one of the most popular JavaScriptgadgets that helpsautoconfirmed users andadmins with common maintenance tasks and in dealing with vandalism and other problematic behaviour.See alsoWP:TWINKLE.
WPCleaner is a tool designed to help with various maintenance tasks, especially repairing links to disambiguation pages, checking Wikipedia, fixing spelling and typography, and helping with translation of articles coming from other wikis.See alsoWP:WPCLEANER.
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