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Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval

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New to bots on Wikipedia? Read these primers!

To run a bot on the English Wikipedia, you must first get it approved. Follow the instructions below to add a request. If you are not familiar with programming, consider asking someone else to run a bot for you.

 Instructions for bot operators
I Before applying for approval
  • Read the bot policy, and check the list of frequently denied bot requests.
  • If your task could be controversial (e.g. most bots making non-maintenance edits to articles and most bots posting messages on user talk pages), seek consensus for the task. Common places to start include WP:Village pump (proposals) and the talk pages of the relevant policies, guidelines, templates, and/or WikiProjects. Link to this discussion in your request for approval.
  • You will need to create an account for your bot if you haven't already done so. Click here when logged in to create the account, linking it to yours. (If you do not create the bot account while logged in, it is likely to be blocked as a possible sockpuppet or unauthorised bot until you verify ownership)
  • Create a userpage for your bot, linking to your userpage (this is commonly done using the {{bot}} template) and describing its functions. You may also include an 'emergency shutoff button'.
II Filing the application
  • Enter your bot's user name in the box below and click the button. If this is a request for an additional task, put a task number as well (e.g. BotName 2).
  • Complete the questions on the resulting page and save it.
  • Your request must now be added to the correct section of the main approvals page: Click here and add {{BRFA}} to the top of the list, directly below the comment line.
    • For a first request: use {{BRFA|bot name||Open}}
    • For an additional task request: use {{BRFA|bot name|task number|Open}}
III During the approvals process
  • During the process, an approvals group member may approve a trial for your bot (typically after allowing time for community input), and AnomieBOT will move the request to this section.
  • Run the bot for the specified number of edits/time period, then add {{Bot trial complete}} to the request page. It helps if you also link to the bot's contributions, and comment on any errors that may have occurred.
  • AnomieBOT will move the request to the 'trial complete' section by moving the {{BRFA}} template that applies to your bot
  • If you feel that your request is being overlooked (no BAG attention for ~1 week) you can add {{BAG assistance needed}} to the page. However, please do not use it after every comment!
  • At any time during the approvals process, you may withdraw your request by adding {{BotWithdrawn}} to your bot's approval page.
IV After the approvals process
  • After the trial edits have been reviewed and enough time has passed for any more discussion, a BAG member will approve or deny the request appropriately.
    • For approved requests: The request will be listed here. If necessary, a bureaucrat will flag the bot within a couple of days and you can then run the task fully (it's best to wait for the flag, to avoid cluttering recent changes). If the bot already has a flag, or is to run without one, you may start the task when ready.
    • For denied/expired/withdrawn requests: The request will be listed at the bottom of the main BRFA page in the relevant section.
Bot Name Status Created Last editor Date/Time Last BAG editor Date/Time
Enfascinationbot (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-03-30, 01:30:23 Enfascination 2026-03-30, 22:30:34 Never edited by BAG n/a
Theleekycauldron (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-03-24, 21:35:09 Theleekycauldron 2026-04-01, 04:48:51 Primefac 2026-03-28, 11:06:08
SdkbBot 5 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2026-02-07, 21:26:55 Primefac 2026-03-08, 20:49:01 Primefac 2026-03-08, 20:49:01

Current requests for approval

Enfascinationbot

Operator: Enfascination (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 01:30, Monday, March 30, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Read-only bot collecting data for academic research about Wikipedia at UC Davis, by Prof Seth Frey.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: None. Read-only bot

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: I've used the account for different projects. here is a past one. Here is a current one.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): NA

Edit period(s): Occasionally (a few times a year or once every few years) performs a burst of requests (1K-200K) over a few days.

Estimated number of pages affected: 0

Namespace(s):Research projects to-date have queried Main and Project on EN and other language editions

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: I am rerunning to update the dataset on an several-years-old academic research project nearing submission-readiness, encountering these limits for the first time. The project is querying all historical AFDs and historical edits to different Notability policies, guidelines, and failed policy proposals to test theories from information science, political economy, and peer production about the effects of community-driven policy development on behavior. Here is a working manuscript draft with preliminary results: [1]. Here is the code: [2]. Here is the webpage with my academic affiliation and credentials: [3]. This and other work has been presented at WikiMania to the WikiMedia community.

Discussion

Theleekycauldron

Operator: Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 21:35, Tuesday, March 24, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Updates Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics monthly

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: yep

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Monthly

Estimated number of pages affected: 1

Namespace(s): Wikipedia

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): n/a

Adminbot (Yes/No): technically, no, but it does rely on CUOS

Function details: This is a strange request, to be sure. But after discussing with the Arbitration Committee, the rough consensus is that this task should be automated, but the benefits of creating a dedicated bot with CUOS rights don't outweigh the risks. So this request is for authorization for me to run a bot task from my main account, extendable to any future arbitrator who takes this task from me. I've already been doing this in my userspace – see User:Theleekycauldron/refract. The last touches would just be putting the tables in projectspace instead. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:35, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Primefac for input as the current maintainer of the tables and a BAG member :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Information Note: This bot has edited its own BRFA page. Bot policy states that the bot account is only for edits on approved tasks or trials approved by BAG; the operator must log into their normal account to make any non-bot edits. AnomieBOT⚡ 21:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Information Note: This bot appears to have edited since this BRFA was filed. Bots may not edit outside their own or their operator's userspace unless approved or approved for trial. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:49, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a very many number of things that I am confused about regarding this situation, but the salient one for this BRFA is... what do you mean by "automated" (and I also suppose... why?)? Regardless, if you are running a script on your personal account for a single use case/page then you do not require a BRFA, in my opinion. Primefac (talk) 11:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I have it running on a Toolforge instance at a set time each month, so technically the script would be making edits (and sending an email to ArbCom with a summary) without my supervision. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 16:09, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Theleekycauldron (Not a BAG member) I agree with Primefac that in it's current state, this shouldn't need bot approval. You can run semi-automated tasks on your own account. I'd also wager that it might be easier from a procedural POV to just spend some time coding up a nice UI and having it as a Toolforge tool? The other option if having it onwiki is non-negotiable would be to have two tasks, a privileged task that dumps the stats using your account into a file on Toolforge and then a unprivileged bot task that copies the data into a nice format to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics. Sohom (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, so I can start writing the tables to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics on an unsupervised monthly schedule? (I mean, realistically, someone'll be supervising it because we use that data almost immediately, but it's no AWB run.) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 04:48, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

SdkbBot 5

Operator: Sdkb (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 21:26, Saturday, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Removes erroneously italicized commas at the end of italicized terms.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: The bot will be operated by running through lists of pages from the RegEx search query insource:/''[A-Z a-z]+,'' / with a find and replace for ''([A-Z a-z]+),'' →''$1'', . It will use the edit summary Fix erroneously italicized comma and general fixes (task 5).

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): None. Although not explicitly specified in the Manual of Style, it is standard English to italicize only the term itself, not punctuation following it.

Edit period(s): Daily

Estimated number of pages affected: 82,000 per this search

Namespace(s): Mainspace (potentially expanding to other namespaces)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Because italics markup looks similar to quotation marks and many editors are used to American-style quotation, many editors erroneously put commas following italicized terms within the italicized term, causing the comma to be erroneously italicized. This bot will fix many of these instances, using the AWB settings described above. I did 50 test edits for a version excluding italicized terms with spaces, manually reviewing each one, and the only instances that gave me any pause were ones within quotations, e.g. here (after "for" in the paragraph beginning "King asked a bookmobile driver"). These could be excluded if an issue, but, per the MOS, Insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically), so I think it's fine to include them. I reviewed another 60 edits (including terms with spaces) via search and found no issues.

Discussion

Should something similar be done with bold? (10,000 per this search) -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:46, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Likely. It might also be worth requesting this be added to the genfixes for AWB so that when this run is over any new instances will be more likely to be picked up. Primefac (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think it'd definitely be nice to do the same thing with erroneously bolded commas. I intentionally kept the query constrained to start off (ignoring any italicized terms with unusual characters, for instance), but it could be expanded after the initial run is over.
And yes, I agree it'd be nice to add this to the GENFIX set. Cheers, Sdkb talk 22:54, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Are you not wanting to do bold? Primefac (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I looked through the first 100 search results for the bold query. I found one niche edge case: On this page, bolding is used to delineate which parts of two passages match. Because manual line breaks are used, some bolded strings end with a comma. You could argue that this is a downstream effect of the article using poor syntax with manual line breaks, or that a passage like that should have been surrounded with {{as written}}. But because bolding is sometimes used for niche purposes like this, I think it's the slightest bit riskier to try to fix it than italics.
I'll defer to whatever the consensus is here about whether, given this, it's worthwhile to include it or not. Sdkb talk 17:44, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This feels like something so minor that it would be best either ignored or done as part of AWB GENFIXES. I oppose this being done as the sole edit to a page. Thryduulf (talk) 14:28, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly not the most earth-shattering change to a page, but it is an improvement, and it's clearly in compliance with WP:COSMETICBOT because it changes the output HTML of the page. It is something that I occasionally notice as a reader. Also, because it's an AWB bot, it can be run alongside GENFIXes, so often the comma fix will not be the only change the bot makes. Sdkb talk 17:20, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the change is an improvement or neutral, and I have no objection to the change being made alongside changes that are unambiguously improvements, but minor changes like this should never be the sole change made by a bot. Thryduulf (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
On hold. There is opposition to the task, and with only the implication of consensus to run the task based on existing guidelines I would prefer to see a stronger consensus to specifically target this as a bot run. I know AWB releases updates less frequently than most countries change leadership, but that would be another route to go down to start whittling away at the list. Primefac (talk) 20:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Primefac, where would be an appropriate venue to get additional input on whether there is consensus to run this as a bot task? Thryduulf's view seems to be that WP:COSMETICBOT should be made stricter, and while I know that's a view some editors hold, presumably it's a minority given that editors have not found consensus to change the language of the bot policy. Sdkb talk 20:34, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Either at the MOS talk or a Village Pump. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a more strict ruling on COSMETICBOT given that it already says Minor edits are not usually considered cosmetic but still need consensus to be done by bots. Since this is a "barely visible" type of minor edit, I'd like to get at least some measure of support for making it; it's not like you're going to need an RFC, just enough to indicate that Thryduulf is in the minority when it comes to being concerned. Primefac (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Bots in a trial period

Bots that have completed the trial period

Approved requests

Bots that have been approved for operations after a successful BRFA will be listed here for informational purposes. No other approval action is required for these bots. Recently approved requests can be found here (edit), while old requests can be found in the archives.


Denied requests

Bots that have been denied for operations will be listed here for informational purposes for at least 7 days before being archived. No other action is required for these bots. Older requests can be found in the Archive.

Expired/withdrawn requests

These requests have either expired, as information required by the operator was not provided, or been withdrawn. These tasks are not authorized to run, but such lack of authorization does not necessarily follow from a finding as to merit. A bot that, having been approved for testing, was not tested by an editor, or one for which the results of testing were not posted, for example, would appear here. Bot requests should not be placed here if there is an active discussion ongoing above. Operators whose requests have expired may reactivate their requests at any time. The following list shows recent requests (if any) that have expired, listed here for informational purposes for at least 7 days before being archived. Older requests can be found in the respective archives: Expired, Withdrawn.

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