Abot (short forsoftware robot) is an automated software program used to perform certain repetitive tasks on a wiki. Bots typically require approval to operate, and are occasionally used by vandals to cause extensive damage to a wiki's content in a short period of time.
On Wikimedia wikis, most bots are active on just one or a few wikis, and are subject to the approval of that wiki's community (seelocal bot policy). Approved bots are added to the local “Bots”user group. The list of all accounts which are bots on any particular wiki is shown atSpecial:ListUsers/bot.
Local and global bots alike are granted the “bot”user right (this is sometimes called a “bot flag”), which permits them higher rate limits for MediaWiki actions such as editing pages, and allows their edits to not show up inrecent changes by default.
Additionally, they are both exempt from some rate limits applied toweb scrapers running against Wikimedia sites (seeWikimedia robot policy). As these exemptions can only be applied to global groups, a “Local bots” global group exists, which is automatically synchronized with the local bot groups on every wiki.
