Wikipedia talk:Bots

Requests for the bot flag should be made on this page. This wiki uses the standard bot policy, and allows global bots and automatic approval of certain types of bots. Other bots should apply below. Global bot flag requests are handled at Meta:Steward requests.

If you are requesting bot status, please use the Current requests section. For other matters dealing with bots, please use the "discussion section".

Local bots

Current requests

Put new requests at the top. Look here for a form to use to request bot status.

SakuraBot

• Contributions
• Operator: Sakura emad
• Programming language: Python 3 (Pywikibot)
• Function: statistics, dashboard maintenance
• Description: Maintains a weekly automated "Active Users Tracker" dashboard. The bot updates a weekly list of the top 10 most active users. It checks the live wiki Database, ignores anyone with fewer than let's say 150 recent edits for now (That's static and can be changed to higher or Lower based on the community overall activity), and displays the results.

--🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 20:49, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

As I said, let's try it: approved for 50 test edits. What might be interesting later: edits to one page, to multiple pages; perhaps a filter by namespace too. (Only article space for now?). Eptalon (talk) 21:25, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

As this is in userspace, is going through the approval process thoroughly with 50 test edits needed? --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 05:55, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

@Eptalon@Ferien The bot's been scheduled to Run weekly. shall i cancel it if this Request takes longer than a week?

The Next Scheduled Run

Job: active-track

Schedule: @weekly

Last Run: Saturday, July 4, 2026, at 13:38 UTC

Next Automatic Run: Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 13:38 UTC

🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 12:16, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

my idea behind the test edits was that you can test the bot. When you have done the 50 edits, you check for irregularities. Eptalon (talk) 16:37, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

By 50 edits do you mean the bot makes 50 changes to that project so we can see if it is suitable? did i understand correctly? cuz if we wait for 50 edits each edit a week, it might take the whole year. cuz the edits done weekly not daily. For a daily bot, "50 test edits" takes an afternoon, for sakurabot which updates weekly dashboard, 50 test edits means waiting 48 weeks (already done 2 edits, almost the whole year). 🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Your bot makes 50 changes, so we see it works as predicted. If it take too long come back earlier? Eptalon (talk) 17:46, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Eptalon, in this case there is no reason for us to take 50 weeks to finish the trial. We should ask Sakura emad to trial the bot for a few weeks - maybe up to five at most - also considering that the changes will only impact her own userspace after all, we do not need to spend ages on this. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 22:01, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree. I'm not even sure the bot flag is needed at all considering the low number of edits expected. fr33kman 22:07, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

@Eptalon@Ferien@@Fr33kman, btw i plan to activate this one as well : ) letting y'all know. 🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 20:19, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

AsteraBot

• Contributions
• Operator: Asteralee
• Programming language: pywikibot
• Function: de-duplicating citations Adds {{reflist}} (and header if not present) to articles without them; fixes articles from Category:Articles with broken Wiktionary links.
• Description: Deduplicates citations once a week. An example edit is here. Alternates between fixing broken Wiktionary links and adding reflist templates weekly.

--⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 00:03, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

@Asteralee: Apologies for this request not getting a response to you sooner. Before starting a trial for this request, I'd like to ask how you intend to go about "fixing" the Wiktionary links. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 06:01, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

PieWBot

• Contributions
• Operator: PieWriter
• Programming language: Python
• Function: Change {{no sources}} to {{more sources}}, removes {{in use}}/{{under construction}} if page has not been edited for more than 7 days (can be changed).
• Description: It changes {{no sources}} or {{unreferenced}} to {{more sources}} if the article actually contains at least one reference by going through pages from Category:All articles lacking sources every week.

--PieWriter (talk) 02:38, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

(Non-bureaucrat observation) Quotes from this thread are relevant:

As for the "stub links", I think you mean stub templates. How would you determine what pages to add them to? For one thing, it's not just a question of how long the page is; it's also about how complete the article is. For another, even if you did go by length, you'd have to count only the actual text as displayed, not the infoboxes, navboxes, categories, comments, tables, wikimarkup, references, related pages, other websites, and probably more. As for the external links, that might be helpful if we want a bot for it, but I don't usually find too many of them when I go through taking care of them --Auntof6

Some of these suggested tasks like stub links and the external links to other websites changes would be content changes and are specifically not allowed to be done by bots. --DJSasso

Adding or removing stub templates are not uncontroversial changes in my opinion, and should never be done by a bot. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 03:37, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

I've updated the bot’s function PieWriter (talk) 02:24, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

I personally find (and iirc have read others voice similar concerns) that many articles tagged as unsourced suffer from tag-bombing as opposed to having major sourcing issues. I have on a few times noticed people tagging super short village stubs (ie X is a village in Y.) with no sources but the real issue is that it is a stub as the fact it is a village is a very very clear fact and one that would not otherwise be sourced. On expanding these I have sometimes found myself unable to add numerous references because there just isn't enough out there. So this is one reason why tags or even changing them is not a process I would like to see automated. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 23:57, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

To address concerns about 'tag-bombing' short stubs, I have can add a requirement that the article must have at least 1,000 characters (can be adjusted) of actual prose before the bot will change the tag. This ensures the bot only acts on substantial, with enough contnt, articles where the transition to 'more sources' is objectively helpful, while leaving short stubs untouched. PieWriter (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

@Ferien: I understand the concerns and withdraw the first task, also can you look at the second function? PieWriter (talk) 08:56, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

@PieWriter: Sorry for the late response, I have not been sure what I think about this idea. The tags can often get stale but can be removed with relative ease by a human, and there are certain things you might spot that haven't been done within a reasonable time - like copying from en, and I think I tagged one of them in the category as AI-generated when I was looking at the category at the time. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 16:36, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Considering there are some tags from a few months, ago and that these articles usually don’t get edited after the author creates them, the template just stays on the page for an indefinite amount of time. It would eventually get removed only if an editor randomly comes across the article or if someone looked through the cats. I think this bot would ensure it is done automatically. This also ensures that readers who visit the page won’t leave as they see the template thinking that the article isn’t finished. PieWriter (talk) 02:02, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

AsteraBot

• Contributions
• Operator: Asteralee
• Programming language: pywikibot
• Function: removal of {{orphan}}
• Description: Removes {{orphan}} once a month after articles have 2 or more backlinks. BattyBot used to do this task but is now inactive. Some example edits are here. ⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 20:01, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

  Approved for trial (50 edits). --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 23:04, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Ferien: Trial complete. ⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 00:51, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you. Asteralee, I have just a couple of questions. As the bot is run with pywikibot, is it running continuously? Should I grant this the bot flag or will it just fix articles as needed? --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 18:01, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

  @Ferien Currently, it is fixing 20 articles each month, which might overflow the RecentChanges log. ⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 18:29, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

  Asteralee, 20 articles a month only wouldn't be enough for flood, so I wouldn't grant a bot flag in this case. If you decide to adjust the number of pages the bot edits at a time in the future, I can give the flag too. So,  Approved. without flag. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 08:46, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Ferien Thank you :) ⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 18:30, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Asteralee: Is there any way it can ignore redirects? It marked AC Magenta as not an orphan, but that only has two redirects and no incoming links. canadachick (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Canadachick Sorry about that. The bot now looks at a dedicated subpage and shouldn't be checking redirects. ⯎ Asteralee ⯎ 18:29, 22 February 2026 (UTC)