Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval

< Wikipedia:Bots
(Redirected from Wikipedia:Bot approvals)

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-related archives
Noticeboard
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
Bots (talk)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22
Newer discussions at WP:BOTN since April 2021
Bot policy (talk)
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28
29, 30
Pre-2007 archived under Bots (talk)
Bot requests
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87
Bot requests (talk)
1, 2
Newer discussions at WP:BOTN since April 2021
BRFA
Old format: 1, 2, 3, 4
New format: Categorized Archive (All subpages)
BRFA (talk)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Newer discussions at WP:BOTN since April 2021
Bot Approvals Group (talk)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
BAG Nominations


Bot Name Status Created Last editor Date/Time Last BAG editor Date/Time
Blippy1998Bot (T|C|B|F) Open 2025-08-19, 07:50:26 DreamRimmer 2025-08-27, 16:48:01 DreamRimmer 2025-08-27, 16:48:01
Dušan Kreheľ (bot) IX (T|C|B|F) Open 2025-08-17, 18:09:14 Dušan Kreheľ 2025-08-26, 17:48:39 Primefac 2025-08-26, 08:26:06
IUCNStatusBot (T|C|B|F) Open: User response needed! 2025-03-25, 05:46:08 Pppery 2025-08-26, 01:51:03 TheSandDoctor 2025-07-02, 22:46:23
AnomieBOT 87 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2025-08-26, 04:52:08 Anomie 2025-08-26, 18:45:52 Primefac 2025-08-26, 08:43:45
GraphBot 2 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2025-07-02, 21:00:07 Tenshi Hinanawi 2025-08-25, 15:12:18 DreamRimmer 2025-07-08, 06:35:07
SodiumBot 2 (T|C|B|F) In trial: User response needed! 2024-07-16, 20:03:26 Sohom Datta 2025-08-26, 13:11:42 DreamRimmer 2025-07-13, 08:17:29
AnomieBOT 86 (T|C|B|F) Trial complete 2025-08-23, 21:10:43 Anomie 2025-08-25, 13:12:29 Primefac 2025-08-24, 22:06:50

Current requests for approval

Blippy1998Bot

Operator: Blippy1998 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 07:50, Tuesday, August 19, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview: Periodically scrape information about the U.S. Congress from appropriate .gov websites and update relevant Wikipedia pages with it (e.g. templates such as Template:HouseRepublicanTally)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (probably)

Source code available: not yet written

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): While there have been questions about whether the templates to be updated by the bot are appropriate in every potential use case or appropriate in their current form (see here for a short discussion), this task simply automates the updating of the templates, which has been done manually for approximately a year without complaints from the community, and there exist no discussions regarding that.

Edit period(s): Approximately daily

Estimated number of pages affected: in the future, probably less than a dozen templates (currently 3), which would together appear in probably less than 100 pages (currently 9)

Namespace(s): just Templates for now

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: For now, scrape the official U.S. House of Representatives summary webpage of members' party affiliation daily and fill Template:HouseDemocraticTally and Template:HouseRepublicanTally with the updated numbers. This would also affect Template:HouseVacantTally. I may also add a Template:HouseIndependentTally page for completeness and have it do the same thing.

Discussion

Bot updating a template transcluded on fewer than 10 articles does not look great, but I have no problem with it. I have checked the website's robots.txt, and there are no restrictions on scraping the mentioned webpage, but I doubt that there will be any changes in the number of house members in the near future, so a trial would not be effective. I can approve it for these four mentioned pages if you can share the source code for this task so that I can be confident that it will do exactly what is described in the task description. I also suggest using a proper user agent with valid contact details when making requests to the site. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:44, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dušan Kreheľ (bot)

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

Time filed: 18:09, Sunday, August 17, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview: Edit the page about Slovak places.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Semi-manual

Programming language(s): Wikimate, own code

Source code available: private

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Occasional

Estimated number of pages affected: Max. 3000

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant: No (The range of pages usually does not have such a need.)

Function details:

  • Task(s) (now):
    • Add population table (see top)
    • Update section Geography:
      • The goal is to avoid quoting from the krehel.sk ___domain (an older solution that is a relic of the past).
      • Rewrite with reference without source krehel.sk (partial advertising per user now).

The user also did something on other Wikipedias about Slovak places.

Discussion

  • Comment: This bot account was blocked a few years ago after some misbehavior. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not like the idea of this bot adding links to Dušan Krehel's personal website. There are some privacy concerns (he gets to see or infer the IP addresses of people who edit rarely edited pages and open up those links, for example), and whatever was done with the data there may be WP:OR. I can't tell, because the link didn't work last time I tried.Ponor (talk) 09:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ponor: That was the older solution when datasets were forked (and it was hosted on my site back then). By blocking the bot, I no longer updated it on enwiki. This old solution is no longer used. Hey, man evolves.
    It's a bit funny that no one seemed to mind at all, even though it can now be done differently. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 11:12, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We like to think everything people do here is seen and checked by others, though in most cases it's not. Anyway... the confusing part is your example of Fintice. Is there an example of what the bot will actually do (a few diffs from enwiki)? You will now be removing the links to krehel.sk, right? Ponor (talk) 11:24, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ponor: You look real code example: Special:Diff/1306814066. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 21:11, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just noting I have rolled that back because it leaves random half-dates kicking about, which does not leave me confident about a bot doing this sort of editing across thousands of pages. Primefac (talk) 22:04, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac: What mind under "random half-dates"? Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 06:35, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies, I seem to have misread the -06-30/-07-01 in the text as being leftover from a partial replacement. Is there no better way to display the date than with that sort of clunky template-plus-text method? Primefac (talk) 22:56, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac: (2024-06-30/-07-01) maybe as (2024). It's better. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 00:27, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How often do population (or area) counts get made? If it's less often than once a year, just the year will probably do. For example in the USA the 2020 United States census is just given as "2020" not the date it was released. Primefac (talk) 08:26, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac:
    2 types of data are available for processing:
    a) Census once every 10 years (population census)
    b) Once a year
    I use the once a year one. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 17:48, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

IUCNStatusBot

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

Time filed: 05:45, Tuesday, March 25, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview:

A bot that updates the IUCN Red List status of Wikipedia pages.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual:

Automatic

Programming language(s):

Python

Source code available: https://github.com/DartAiden/IUCN_Status_Bot/tree/main

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): No discussion really applicable. I briefly made a request to see if anything was existing, only to receive little reply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot_requests#IUCN_Status_Bot

Edit period(s):

Run once

Estimated number of pages affected:

Around 11,000.

Namespace(s): Wikipedia pages for species.

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Not really relevant.

Function details:

This is a simple script to update the IUCN Red List status of Wikipedia pages for birds, though the functionality can most likely be extended elsewhere. The IUCN Red List status is a measure of conservation status included in the species box of most birds. This bot extracts the name of the citation to ensure contiguity of editing, updates the status itself, and then updates the reference. This bot would be run once now, to standardize the citations, and once every time the Red List is updated, though it is necessary only to run it with those species that are being updated. I may add other functionality in the future, such as updating the actual pages that list statuses (List of critically endangered birds).

Discussion

Would it be worth doing this on Wikidata instead, and then have the template pull from there? — Qwerfjkltalk 12:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote a bot once that did sommat similar updates by querying the IUCN API. There was sufficient adverse editor pushback that I retired the bot.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What was the nature of the pushback? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:16, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Convenience links: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Monkbot 19, User talk:Trappist the monk/Archive 23#Monkbot Task 19 - IUCN status –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:23, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Looks like it was really a content dispute about whether "Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)" is a valid IUCN designation. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:34, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AidenD, Edit period: Runce on? Primefac (talk) 13:29, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What? AidenD (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is what you have listed in the edit period for this bot. I was looking for clarification because I have never heard of that sort of time frame. Primefac (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think they mean "Run once". – SD0001 (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would make sense. Incidentally, that's about the only option I didn't think of. Primefac (talk) 22:50, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops, that is what I meant. My apologies. AidenD (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{BAG assistance needed}} * Pppery * it has begun... 16:37, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AFAICS, this bot would run into the same concern raised with Monkbot 19 - that it doesn't consider "PE" as a valid designation, although Template:Taxobox/species does, and therefore would overwrite the classifications of species currently denoted with a status of "PE". Is that a correct understanding? If so, probably that should be settled as a content decision in some other venue first. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:02, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It might also be possible to work around the content dispute. For example, programming the bot not to touch anything that is already PE onwiki. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:19, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It may also comment out new PE designations, which could then be automatically removed or uncommented on resolution of the dispute. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 02:29, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is a very good point. @AidenD: Would it be possible to integrate that from above before we consider any sort of trial? TheSandDoctor Talk 22:46, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They can be manually added, the unfortunate problem is that the IUCN API does not discern between those - I can always manually add them, however. AidenD (talk) 06:17, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is the status of this? AidenD, have you done something to result this problem? I don't see any changes to the GitHub repo. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:59, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Between now and when I wrote the bot, the IUCN released a new API, which luckily allows the user to discern possibly extinct organisms - I updated the stored bird species appropriately. However, the new API seems to have very little support for fetching citations annoyingly - I am hoping they update this, but for now, I do have all the most recent citations stored in the CSV file. AidenD (talk) 01:37, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) What is the status of this? * Pppery * it has begun... 01:51, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bots in a trial period

AnomieBOT 87

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

Time filed: 04:52, Tuesday, August 26, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview: Manipulate various templates related to copying files to Commons.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/CommonsFileTemplateFixer.pm

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot requests#Removing Template:Now Commons from files tagged with Template:Keep local, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 1, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 2, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 7, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 8, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 9, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 11, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FastilyBot 15.

Edit period(s): A few times per day

Estimated number of pages affected: Depends how often the templates need updating.

Namespace(s): File

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details:

In all cases, it'll try to avoid adding duplicate templates.

Discussion

This is a replacement for FastilyBot tasks 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 15. Some differences that may be worth noting:

  • "Task 1" may add multiple {{Now Commons}} templates, if there are duplicate copies on Commons and none have the same title as the enwiki file. The {{Now Commons}} will replace the {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons}} instead of being prepended to the page.
  • "Task 2" continues to use User:FastilyBot/Task/2/Blacklist for now.
  • "Task 7" and "task 9" may differ in behavior if there are duplicates of the file on Commons and only one duplicate is nominated for deletion: I think FastilyBot may have counted all duplicates' nominations for these tasks, while AnomieBOT will only consider the duplicates linked from the appropriate templates.
  • I note the function overview in FastilyBot 9 doesn't match the final behavior of the task. AnomieBOT follows the final behavior.
  • "Task 11" and "task 15" will handle all {{Now Commons}} templates. FastilyBot only handled "same name" instances.
  • "Task 11" won't lose any other parameters when adding the date.
  • AnomieBOT will try to avoid adding duplicate templates, e.g. if someone already added the {{Nominated for deletion on Commons}} then it will just delete a corresponding {{Now Commons}}.
  • AnomieBOT will try to make all needed edits to a file at once, instead of doing each task as a separate edit (e.g. it won't do like this).
  • Edit summaries are all different.

Anomie⚔ 04:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Approved for trial (70 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Please run ten edits per task just to make sure everything is working as intended. Primefac (talk) 08:43, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. AnomieBOT's code really isn't set up that way, I'll have to get creative. But I have an idea. The total probably won't be 70 actual edits, as one edit may cover multiple tasks. Anomie⚔ 13:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The bot will update the following table with the status of the trial. Note some tasks may go over the 10, if the extra edits also qualify for some other task that hasn't hit 10 yet. Also it looks like task 15 isn't going to get very many edits though, I may have to make some edits to trigger it if you want to see it. Anomie⚔ 15:59, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Task Count Edits
1 11 1307945598 1307945601 1307945607 1307945623 1307945625 1307945631 1307945641 1307945643 1307945653 1307945656 1307961537
2 10 1307946231 1307946422 1307946474 1307946481 1307946485 1307946498 1307946538 1307953431 1307961548 1307963261
7 10 1307945619 1307945625 1307945633 1307945635 1307945641 1307945649 1307945669 1307945677 1307945709 1307945732
8 5 1307945752 1307945774 1308085265 1308352145 1308461229
9 2 1307945758 1307950677
11 15 1307945587 1307945589 1307945590 1307945591 1307945593 1307945596 1307945598 1307945601 1307945602 1307945607 1307945623 1307945631 1307945643 1307945653 1307945656
15 3 1307949132 1307950677 1307961537
@Primefac: We'll probably get some task 8 or 9s trickling in yet as things get deleted or kept on Commons. I don't know that both will hit 10 any time soon though. 15 is even less likely, all three currently there are due to me manually mistagging things. Up to you how long you want to keep waiting. Anomie⚔ 18:45, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GraphBot 2

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

Time filed: 21:00, Wednesday, July 2, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview:

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Rust/Python

Source code available: Uses mwbot

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Redirects_related_to_those_nominated_at_RfD and Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion#Avoided double redirects of nominated redirects

Edit period(s): Continous

Page: Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes (but N/A)

Adminbot (Yes/No): No

Function details:

  • Look at each RFD on each RFD Page
  • Determines whether there are any other redirects, in any namespace, that meet one or more of the following criteria:
    • Are marked as an avoided-double redirect of a nominated redirect
    • Are redirects to the nominated redirect
    • Redirect to the same target as the nominated redirect and differ only in the presence or absence of non-alphanumeric characters, and/or differ only in case
  • If the bot finds any redirects that match and which are not currently nominated at RfD, then it should post a message in the discussion (final details about the message are TBD, but the bot request outline the general point). The bot limits the length of it's message, ensuring that the RfD is not over-cluttered.

Discussion

Thanks for working on this GalStar, but it's not clear whether it is checking for redirects that differ only in the presence/absence of diacritics? Thryduulf (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Diacritics fall under non-alphanumeric characters. GalStar (talk) (contribs) 16:48, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Approved for trial (30 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. – DreamRimmer ■ 06:35, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{Operator assistance needed}} Anything on the trial? Tenshi! (Talk page) 18:54, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Am on vacation, expect updates in a few days. GalStar (talk) (contribs) 15:48, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  On hold until RfD accepts my proposal to use a new templating system, one that is more friendly to bots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GalStar (talk • contribs) 05:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  On hold. For AnomieBot. Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SodiumBot 2

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

Time filed: 20:03, Tuesday, July 16, 2024 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: https://github.com/DreamRimmer/SodiumBot

Function overview: Notify previous reviewers of a article at AFD about the nomination

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Initial discussions on NPP Discord + previous BRFAs surrounding AFD notifications

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 1-2 per day (guessimate?)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No, on enwiki, yes, for other wikis on other tasks

Function details:

  • Use the eventstream API to listen for new AfDs
  • Extract page name by parsing the AfD wikitext
  • Identify previous reviewers of page at AFD
  • Notify said reviewers on their talk pages with a customised version of the existing AfD notification message

Discussion

  • I like this concept in general. I tried to make a user script that does this (User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/WatchlistAFD.js#L-89--L-105), but it doesn't work (I probably need to rewrite it to use MutationObserver). Would this bot be automatic for everyone, or opt in? Opt in may be better and easier to move forward in a BRFA. If not opt in, may want to start a poll somewhere to make sure there's some support for "on by default". –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it would be better to be on by default with the option for reviewers to disable. (t · c) buidhe 14:28, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah yes. "Opt out" might be a good way to describe this third option. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - seems like a good idea. I've reviewed several articles that I've tagged for notability or other concerns, only to just happen to notice them by chance a few days later get AfD'ed by someone else. A bot seems like a good idea, and I can't see a downside. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the sort of thing that would be really good for some people (e.g., new/infrequent reviewers) and really frustrating for others (e.g., people who have reviewed tens of thousands of articles). If it does end up being opt-out, each message needs to have very clear instructions on how to opt out. It would also be worth thinking about a time limit: most people aren't going to get any value out of hearing about an article they reviewed a decade ago. Maybe a year or two would be a good threshold. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The PREVIOUS_NOTIF regex should also account for notifications left via page curation tool ("Deletion discussion about xxx"). The notification also needs to be skipped if the previous reviewer themself is nominating. In addition, I would suggest adding a delay of at least several minutes instead of acting immediately on AfD creation – as it can lead to race conditions where Twinkle/PageTriage and this bot simultaneously deliver notifications to the same user. – SD0001 (talk) 13:41, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • {{Operator assistance needed}} Thoughts on the above comments/suggestions? Also, do you have the notice ready to go or is that still in the works? If it's ready, please link to it (or copy it here if it's hard-coded elsewhere). Primefac (talk) 12:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac I've implemented a few of the suggestions, I've reworked the code to exclude pages containing {{User:SodiumBot/NoNPPDelivery}}, which should serve as a opt out mechanism :) I've also reworked the code to include SD0001's suggestion of adding a significant delay by making the bot wait at least a hour and also added modified the regex to account for the messages sent by PageTriage.
    Wrt to Extraordinary Writ's suggestions, I have restricted the lookup to the last 3 years as well and created a draft User:SodiumBot/ReviewerAfdNotification which has instructions on how to opt out. Sohom (talk) 16:02, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I'll leave this open for a few days for comment before going to trial. Primefac (talk) 16:07, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Please make sure this BRFA is linked in the edit summary. Primefac (talk) 23:50, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    {{Operator assistance needed}} Any progress on this? Primefac (talk) 12:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I had left the bot running, it hasn't picked up a single article by the looks of the logs. I'mm gonna try to do some debugging on what the issue is/was. Sohom (talk) 14:22, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I've pushed some fixes, gonna see how that does. Sohom (talk) 15:24, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I ran across Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDZeroBot 6 today, which is a very similar task, and uses an "opt out" strategy. This suggests that the community may be OK with having AFD notifications be on by default for a bot task like this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:10, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    {{operator assistance needed}} What is the status of this? * Pppery * it has begun... 16:05, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I remember @DreamRimmer helping me out a bit with this, I'm not sure what is going on with the bot atm/why it is still stuck :( Sohom (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Lemme take a deeper look and get back to you by ETOW Sohom (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sohom Datta: What is the status of this? Requests shouldn't linger for almost a year. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:35, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Noting that I'm aware -- I'll try some stuff over the weekend and report back -- If it doesn't work out, I'll close this as declined. Sohom (talk) 15:09, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Job is now working (thanks to a lot of work by DreamRimmer!) Sohom (talk) 14:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Came across this after receiving some (unwanted) messages at User_talk:Joe_Roe#Nomination_of_Vũ_Duy_Hoàng_for_deletion. The NppNotifier task should be opt-in. It would make sense to run it opt-out if notifying NPP reviewers of AfDs manually was previously a common practice, but that isn't the case. I'm pretty much average in terms of reviewing activity and I've reviewed 2100 pages in the last three years – that's potentially a lot of unwanted messages to send to someone without asking! Also, regarding Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Initial discussions on NPP Discord – this is really not good enough. It should have been discussed on-wiki, in advance with the people who are actually going to receive the automated messages (i.e. NPP reviewers). – Joe (talk) 08:52, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Joe Roe, It should have been discussed on-wiki, in advance with the people who are actually going to receive the automated messages (i.e. NPP reviewers). -- I will start by noting that the NPP discord is made up primarily of NPP reviewers. Also, this BRFA was also advertised onwiki for the large portion for a month last year at WT:NPR during which multiple people commented above that having this be opt-out was a good idea (see above). I only implemented this to be opt-out after the onwiki consensus had been formed. Sohom (talk) 09:23, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A small minority of NPP reviewers. Consensus is reached through on-wiki discussion or by editing. Discussions elsewhere are not taken into account. This is a policy. And I'm aware of the notification. That's what I meant by discussed in advance (of the BRFA). Doesn't it make sense to find out whether people actually want to receive these messages, before you request permission to run a bot to send them? – Joe (talk) 09:28, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm confused about what you are implying here, the initial idea of a bot to notify NPP folks of AFD discussions was borne out of a discussion on Discord, when the BRFA was filed onwiki it was advertised in places where you would expect NPP editors to show up, folks edited, discussed it onwiki (here or remained silent), they said that opt-out was fine and that was what was implemented. I don't understand what policy was violated here. The BRFA is explicitly meant to be a venue to discuss the working of the bot, it's not insular to only folks who have technical knowledge and it is not required to work out every single thing about the bot before filing a BRFA.
    Regarding the meat of the complaint, as @Novem Linguae mentions above, there are cases where we do have opt-out notifications about AFDs from bots (another example of opt-out notifications would be the modus operandi of bots that WP:G13 drafts). There is a implicit consensus that these kinds of bots are fine and do not violate policy. Also, and I've reviewed 2100 pages in the last three years – that's potentially a lot of unwanted messages to send to someone without asking assumes that a large portion of these articles would get AFDed, when in actuality, you are probably expecting that number to be much much lower. Sohom (talk) 09:45, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You are implying the existence of a consensus to run this bot opt-in that does not exist. I can only assume that this is because either you think it was formed on Discord, in which case again see WP:CON; or you have misread the discussion above where the very first commenter suggested opt-in, the second preferred opt-out, and no subsequent participant expressed a preference. I'm not saying this is a bad idea for a task, but you do not currently have consensus to run it this way and I'm suggesting that you perhaps could have done a better job in seeking that before writing and running a bot (even as a trial). The other AfD notification bots automate notifications that are or were previously commonly performed manually; as I mentioned above, this is not the case here. Thus I do not think you should send people automated messages that they did not ask for and would not currently expect to receive.
    assumes that a large portion of these articles would get AFDed – I have no idea what the proportion would be. But 1% is still 21 messages and any value is greater than the number I would like to receive if asked, which is zero. – Joe (talk) 10:02, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Joe Roe, I have disabled the bot for the time being. I still stand by the fact that I have to the best of my ability tried to have folks be involved, advertised discussions and acted based on what I understood the on-wiki consensus on the matter was. I also want to be extremely clear, I resent and reject your implication that I somehow willingly violated WP:BOTREQUIRE by running a bot "without consensus". That is a serious accusation. The burden of proof (imo) is still on your end that I have somehow ignored some form of established consensus and policy. If you have problems with the opt-out nature of the bot and want to restart the discussion, feel free to do so on WT:NPR and ping me to it. Sohom (talk) 12:09, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see plenty of support for this bot in this BRFA and at WT:NPPR. Joe Roe is the only objection so far.
    • As evidenced by the WT:NPPR diff provided by Sohom above, and the existence of this BRFA that has had 10 unique editors post in it, this task was properly socialized onwiki. Focusing on the Discord part is distracting and a red herring.
    • Sometimes the best or even only way to get more comments on a software proposal is to deploy it more widely.
    • I think it'd be reasonable to resume and finish the trial. If there are other folks that feel like Joe Roe who want to comment against the bot task, I think the best way to find this out is for the bot to do its trial.
    • I am not unsympathetic to Joe's concerns. My initial instinct in the very first comment in this BRFA was to make the bot opt in. But that is not the way the onwiki BRFA discussion went.
    –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:31, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Pending no concerns/objections by tmrw, I'll start the task again. Sohom (talk) 23:58, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) What is the status of this? * Pppery * it has begun... 01:54, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The trial for this is complete, I'l post some aggregated statistics in a day. Sohom (talk) 13:11, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bots that have completed the trial period

AnomieBOT 86

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

Time filed: 21:10, Saturday, August 23, 2025 (UTC)

Function overview: Further maintain bot-created redirects for AnomieBOT 74, beyond what was approved in AnomieBOT 80.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/EnDashRedirectCreator.pm

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): None.

Edit period(s): A few times daily.

Estimated number of pages affected: Depends what maintenance is needed.

Namespace(s): Same as AnomieBOT 74

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: AnomieBOT 74 approved AnomieBOT to create redirects for titles containing en-dashes, and AnomieBOT 80 approved updating the redirects when the redirect's target needs changing. I'd like to further maintain these redirects, for example

  • If the {{User:AnomieBOT/Auto-G8}} target doesn't correspond to the page name, e.g. the redirects were moved but the template wasn't updated.
  • If a human or other bot fixed the redirect target after the en-dashed title was moved or converted to a redirect before AnomieBOT 80 saw it, but did not add {{R avoided double redirect}}.
  • If the {{User:AnomieBOT/Auto-G8}} template is missing from a bot-created redirect, e.g. if someone removed it after not fully understanding its purpose.

As with AnomieBOT 80, the bot will fully update the redirect to fix things up, so additional changes may be included.

Also, AnomieBOT 80 only applies to redirects originally created by AnomieBOT. I'd like the bot to also be allowed to "adopt" redirects created by others that have the bot's {{User:AnomieBOT/Auto-G8}} template on them, e.g. Diocese of Doumé-Abong’ MbangDiocese of Doumé-Abong’ Mbang that I had to create manually because the title blacklist stopped the bot from doing it.

Discussion

Regarding the initial set of fixes:

  • Auto-G8 target needs updating: Waiting on the job queue to process the recent template edits.
  • Missing {{R avoided double redirect}}: Looks like about 82k currently.
  • Missing {{User:AnomieBOT/Auto-G8}}: Looks like around 1300 created since December 2016 have lost it, plus around 180k created earlier that never had it.

Anomie⚔ 21:10, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Approved for trial (100 edits or 30 days, whichever happens first). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I trust you to do what you need to, but let's just make sure everything's squared away. If this task is looking like it's going to be well under 100 edits over a period of 30 days then we can adjust (just post here). Primefac (talk) 22:06, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  Trial complete. Edits for the trial are here. Anomie⚔ 13:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]


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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