Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval

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 ~2 weeks) 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 NameStatusCreatedLast editorDate/TimeLast BAG editorDate/Time
NervousBot (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-08-10, 09:59:16 Balance36412026-08-10, 09:59:16 Never edited by BAGn/a
Monkbot 23 (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-08-09, 17:01:24 Nikkimaria2026-08-09, 17:37:25 Never edited by BAGn/a
DreamRimmer bot 9 (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-08-08, 14:27:58 DreamRimmer2026-08-08, 14:27:58 Never edited by BAGn/a
AFLTablesBot (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-07-21, 12:46:45 Voorts2026-07-30, 00:22:50 Never edited by BAGn/a
DreamRimmer bot II 8 (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-07-27, 09:40:39 DreamRimmer2026-07-28, 10:44:29 Never edited by BAGn/a
Sldst-bot (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-07-24, 08:07:57 Primefac2026-07-25, 12:52:47 Primefac2026-07-25, 12:52:47
Blippy1998Bot 2 (T|C|B|F) Open 2026-07-14, 05:41:54 Blippy19982026-07-16, 16:16:38 Never edited by BAGn/a
SdkbBot 5 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2026-02-07, 21:26:55 Thryduulf2026-08-11, 00:39:14 Primefac2026-08-10, 22:48:36
AnnealBot (T|C|B|F) In trial 2026-07-23, 01:57:30 Primefac2026-07-25, 22:00:52 Primefac2026-07-25, 22:00:52
SnowyBot 2 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2026-04-25, 02:07:40 Primefac2026-07-19, 13:18:25 Primefac2026-07-19, 13:18:25
FlammableBot 3 (T|C|B|F) Trial complete 2026-08-06, 00:02:57 FlammablePizza2026-08-07, 17:41:45 DreamRimmer2026-08-07, 17:05:11

Current requests for approval

NervousBot

Operator: Balance3641 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 09:58, Monday, August 10, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Alerts users to cross-language articles created for articles they have authored. Will watch for new articles linked to the wikidata and alert users on their talk page.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic, can supervise to begin before becoming automatic.

Programming language(s): Typescript

Source code available: Not currently

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Would_anyone_be_opposed_to_a_bot_that_notifies_you_when_someone_translates_an_article_you_made? Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_that_informs_you_when_someone_translates_your_article

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Upper bound was ~5 alerts/min measured over the last day.

Namespace(s): User_talk

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The bot watches the live EventStreams recentchange stream, and detects edits to the wikidata wikipedia entries and if there is an enwiki entry, and another wiki is added a message is added to user talk pages. Users can opt-out with the {{bots}} template. The bot adds a comment in the message to detect duplicate messages based on the source article and linked language (so spamming the wikidata with changes won't spam user talk pages, even if the article linked is different). The bot will listen on User:NervousBot/shutoff, and anything except 'running' on the page will force a shutdown. Logs will be written to User:NervousBot/log.

Talk Page Message

A new page Foo on the French Wikipedia has been linked to your page Foo via Wikidata (Q123).

To opt out of these notifications, see the opt-out instructions.

Discussion

Monkbot 23

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

Time filed: 17:00, Sunday, August 9, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: delete deprecated |citeseerx= parameters from cs1|2 templates

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): awb c#

Source code available: see task 23

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): see task 23

Edit period(s): one time run

Estimated number of pages affected: ~17,900

Namespace(s): main

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): yes

Function details: see task 23

Discussion

DreamRimmer bot 9

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

Time filed: 14:27, Saturday, August 8, 2026 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): JavaScript

Source code available:

Function overview: Mark around 5,600 articles reviewed by CostalCal as unreviewed

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#-patroller cleanup

Edit period(s): one-time

Estimated number of pages affected: 5,600

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: There is consensus that some level of unreviewing should happen, and as TechnoSquirrel69 suggested, the bot will mark as unreviewed all articles where the gap between reviews was less than 20 seconds. This is not too many to put a burden on the backlog, but also not too few to avoid compromising the quality and NPP standards.

Discussion

AFLTablesBot

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

Time filed: 12:46, Tuesday, July 21, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Synchronizes AFL player statistics (games and goals) from AFL Tables to Wikipedia player infoboxes.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (using Pywikibot)

Source code available: Custom Python script using Pywikibot and requests.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Daily during the AFL season.

Estimated number of pages affected: ~600 pages checked daily; edits only occur when a player's stats have actively changed.

Namespace(s): Mainspace (Articles)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Adminbot (Yes/No): No

Function details: The bot scrapes active player statistics (total games and goals) from AFL Tables (e.g., https://afltables.com/afl/stats/2026.html). It then iterates through the corresponding Wikipedia articles for those active players.

The bot targets the {{Infobox AFL biography}} template to update:

  • The `games_goalsX` parameter corresponding to the player's current active club.
  • The `games_goalstotal` parameter if the player has played for multiple clubs.
  • The `statsend` parameter, advancing it to the most recently completed round (e.g., "round 19, 2026").

The script strictly parses the wikitext, updating the stats inline while meticulously preserving existing references, comments, and other infobox data. It runs as a "dry run" first to calculate diffs and will only perform a live edit if the AFL Tables data represents an actual advancement of the player's Wikipedia statistics.

Discussion

  • 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⚡ 22:46, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

DreamRimmer bot II 8

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

Time filed: 09:40, Monday, July 27, 2026 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available:

Function overview: It will add the {{Top 25 Report}} template to the talk pages of all articles that appear in the weekly WP:Top 25 Report.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot requests#Top 25 Report

Edit period(s): Twice a week

Estimated number of pages affected: 25 per week, and also those that appeared between 2020 and April 2026 and were never updated (approximately 500)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Add the {{Top 25 report}} template to the talk pages of articles that appear in Wikipedia:Top 25 Report. I will also do a one time run to update the talk pages of articles that appeared in the report between 2020 and April 2026 but were never updated. For example, for Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 21 to 27, 2026, it will add {{Top 25 report|Jun 21 2026 (23rd)}} on Talk:Curaçao.

Discussion

  • Support. There are lots of examples of humans doing this update. The community clearly supports these tags. It’s an ideal job for a bot. (Bot operator and request page stalker). Dw31415 (talk) 11:44, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Sldst-bot

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

Time filed: 08:07, Friday, July 24, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: One-off runs to correct music charts or infoboxes.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Starting with supervised, then automatic

Programming language(s): Python/Pywikibot

Source code available: -

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Template talk:Single chart#Canadian RPM templates need updated

Edit period(s): Series of one time runs

Estimated number of pages affected: around 8300 articles

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The Canadian music charts website was recently updated, and all the IDs have changed. I’ve created a mapping table which I’m going to use to transfer the old entries to the new chart with the new IDs. Moreover, these kinds of charts edit runs happen from time to time; I used to carry them out from my main account, but it would be more convenient for me to do so from the bot's account. To comply with the policy on bulk edits and avoid flooding.

Discussion

  • 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⚡ 08:18, 25 July 2026 (UTC)
    Made test edits with the script using the bot account and also completed the same entire batch on ruwiki. Solidest (talk) 11:40, 25 July 2026 (UTC)
    You're not supposed to do that, which is why the notice was posted. Primefac (talk) 12:52, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Blippy1998Bot 2

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

Time filed: 05:41, Tuesday, July 14, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: updating a draft set of data modules, hopefully with permissions to also edit what would hopefully be a non-draft set of data modules, with new data about legislatures pulled from official/authoritative sources, starting with the United States House of Representatives. btw if i'm allowed to add my own userspace and my own module sandbox to Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration without asking permission, let me know and i'll just do that for now, but it would be nice to get permission to edit Module:Legislature and its subpages in the near future with my bot also.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Python, Scribunto

Source code available: it's just on my computer at the moment

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Blippy1998Bot
User_talk:Morwen#A_barnstar_for_you! - i describe it a bit here, BELOW the discussion about Module:Legislature diagram, which is wholly unrelated (i probably should have started a new section). i have described it elsewhere, too.

Edit period(s): no more than every hour when my laptop is open, but realistically no more than a few times a month to begin with, scaling with how many legislative chambers are covered

Estimated number of pages affected: for now i think just 3 but probably well under 100 within the next year

Namespace(s): the Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998 namespace and maybe my userspace for now but in the future hopefully Module:Legislature and all its subpages, plus perhaps some templates

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): yes (it would only edit a short whitelist of pages for now)

Function details:

the goal of this bot is to automate updates for data on legislatures - current seats, current members, current committees, and whatever else people see fit to add. there is to be a module with functions that parses that data in useful ways, computing the list of members belonging to a certain party, the balance of power, etc. this is not meant to replace user editing of highly-trafficked pages, but rather to serve as centralized, standardized database-like storage for information that infrequently-edited articles and sections of articles can pull from so that they stay up to date automatically. (this can be seen as a major expansion of my previous work, which can be read about at my previous bot request.)

this bot would, initially, edit Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature/US/lower/committees, Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature/US/lower/members, and Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature/US/lower/seats only, i think, but i would love to see it grow to cover other legislative chambers, and of course to migrate to Module:Legislature once i think it's ready. i may have it edit various templates - within my userspace to start - automatically to update citations automatically as it downloads new data, for example.

basically, what it would do is use a number of python scripts to download the xml file, check it against the local copy, and update it if it's new. then, if it did that, it would parse the new one and update the committees, seats, and members jsons i have locally before simply converting those to lua data modules and uploading them to the pages i listed above. in other words, it would effectively just update the data at each of these data module pages in this formatted, quasi-relational way, parsed directly from the official xml file every time it's updated.

Discussion

How does this data get pulled off of the legislative website? Also, legislators' districts at the state level seem to have trouble getting updated. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 01:04, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

it just gets this page using a python script every hour while my laptop is connected to the internet. i haven't written code to pull data for every state legislature - that would be incredibly tedious to do alone - but i've designed the structure of the modules to be easily expandable to other legislatures. for example, if someone wrote a script to download data for Texas's Senate, they could put the data into Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/members, Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/seats, and Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/committees, or other subpages as appropriate, and then use the same functions in Module:Legislature (already written in Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature) and templates (not yet written) to create views of the data, like a wikitable of all the members of a certain committee, or just the tally of members of a certain party. the point is to set up a framework that is easily extensible so people can write their own scripts and upload a data module to a sensible location with a standardized format (like Legislature/[ISO country code]/[subnational entity code]/[chamber label]/seats) and then not have to rewrite functions that actually parse that data. but all i'm seeking approval for is the bot that pushes the updates to those pages. seeing as all i have is the US House at the moment, updates would realistically not happen more than a few times a month to just a few pages, but, yes, hopefully more legislatures would be added and the number of pages and frequency of edits would scale with that. Blippy1998 (talk) 16:16, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

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: 103,000 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)

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)
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)
Are you not wanting to do bold? Primefac (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
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)

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)

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)
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)
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)
@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)
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)
@Sdkb: Did you start a discussion to gather consensus at all? Tenshi! (Talk page) 14:59, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
@Tenshi Hinanawi, yes, see here. I read it as a weak consensus to proceed, although it didn't gather as much input as I would've liked. Sdkb talk 15:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
As I said at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 230 § Bot task to remove erroneously italicized commas, I think this would be a useful bot. I always fix those manually as well. However, it should not fix incorrectly "fix" instances of multiple italics separated by a non-italicised space, such as ''The good,'' ''the bad,'' ''and the ugly'', since this is especially common when editing in the VE. Otherwise it might sometimes make the problem worse, not better. FaviFake (talk) 12:54, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
How does one person reiterating their comments at a long-archived discussion help anything here? Should every participant just repeated their comments there here? I note that nobody has expressed any opposition to doing this as an AWB-task or alongside some other unambiguously substantive change, and nobody has articulated any reason why that would not be sufficient. Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
I just wanted to make sure the bot doesn't incorrectly handle this edge case in case it's approved. Do with that what you will. FaviFake (talk) 13:03, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Name-internal commas is an edge case the bot can handle, but name-internal edge cases where also there is a break in italicization is an edge case within an edge case that it cannot. I did not come across any instances of this scenario during the 110 test edits I reviewed, so I believe it is exceptionally rare. Overall, the garbage-in, garbage-out principle applies. Sdkb talk 14:45, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia is written for our WP:READERS. As long as the garbage stays in the editor, it's fine. If your bot would cause the garbage to be displayed to our readers, then I oppose the bot. FaviFake (talk) 14:49, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
@FaviFake, can you point me to any article where this would happen (or, better, give me a number of articles affected)? I could ensure all of them are resolved before running the bot. Sdkb talk 14:53, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
I'm not a technical user, so I can't give you any stats. But I've just tested this on the current version of the VE and I was able to italicise three parts of a sentence with commas in them, and the VE outputted this result in the preview: After ''the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq,'' ''ISI,'' ''then-led by John Doe,'' continued
I suspect this is rare. Someone should figure out a way to find a list of the articles that have this issue. Once they're fixed correctly, I guess your bot could go ahead even if it would still produce incorrect results from new edits. I just don't want to introduce the incorrect formatting into the articles that have been edited since Wikipedia was started. FaviFake (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
@FaviFake, wait, it's actually pretty easy to find these instances by just adding additional quote marks to the search query. There are 6,600 results. I manually reviewed the first 100 (you're welcome to do the same), and found that nearly all were instances of a list of italicized items or improper italicization in a reference, all of which the bot would handle correctly. There was only one instance, here (a comma being erroneously used to separate a title and subtitle), that was at all questionable.
We could modify the find-and-replace to skip all these instances (where an italicized term ending in a comma is immediately followed by another italicized term after a space) by using a negative lookahead. However, based on the sample, it appears that this isn't an issue, so my weak preference would be to leave them in. Which option do you prefer? Sdkb talk 17:40, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Huh, I didn't think there would be so few false positives. I've reviewed 100 more and they were all incorrect. So now I support the bot based on the data. Even if we assume 1% of 6k articles would cause false positives, that's just 60 articles, which is a great compromise! FaviFake (talk) 17:57, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Doing it as an AWB task would be exponentially slower. Because it is not a cosmetic task as it changes the visible page output, it is eligible to be done by bot. I know you disagree, but if you want to interpret the rules other than as they're written, you need to take that up as a proposed change to WP:COSMETICBOT. Sdkb talk 14:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Why does it need to be done more quickly than AWB would do it? What benefit does a change imperceptible to many (maybe most) readers, with no semantic relevance for readers or screen readers, bring that justifies so many edits? It doesn't meet the letter of COSMETICBOT but it certainly matches the spirit. Thryduulf (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
You had the opportunity to make that argument at the WT:MOS discussion and were not able to get a consensus supporting your view. It's time to drop the stick. Sdkb talk 18:07, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
No stick needs to be dropped at this point. The MOS discussion was essentially over by the time I was aware of it and your comment here is the first time anybody has actually acknowledged the substance of my comments and even you've just said "I disagree". You're entitled to disagree but that doesn't equate to a consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 00:39, 11 August 2026 (UTC)
  • One small update: I've tweaked the query to include wikilinks. Reviewing the results, I'm not seeing any errors being introduced. Sdkb talk 17:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
  • @BAG: combining the WT:MOS discussion with FaviFake's additional support above, I'd say this is ready for approval. Are we good to proceed? Sdkb talk 18:10, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
    I'm not going to weigh in on this too much just now, but FaviFake also participated in the MOS discussion, so their support here does not do anything to tip the scales in either direction. Primefac (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
    Yeah, I wasn't suggesting they be allowed to !vote twice, but just that they had concerns at the MOS discussion which are now resolved per above. Sdkb talk 23:00, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
    Yeah; to clarify, I commented here because I noticed the MOS discussion had been archived but the issue that another editor and I had hadn't been mentioned here. Now that we discussed it a bit more and discovered it's not really an issue, it just validates the MOS consensus. FaviFake (talk) 23:06, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Bots in a trial period

AnnealBot

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

Time filed: 01:57, Thursday, July 23, 2026 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Rust

Source code available: https://codeberg.org/pauline/AnnealBot-wp

Function overview: Corrects the invalid IPA symbol ʋ → v inside {{IPA|sh}}/{{IPA|sr}}/{{IPA|hr}}/{{IPA|bs}}/{{IPA|cnr}} transcriptions, per Help:IPA/Serbo-Croatian.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot_requests#IPA_symbol (raised by IvanScrooge98)

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 782 (live CirrusSearch count, 2026-07-22; query: incategory:"Pages with Serbo-Croatian IPA" insource:/ʋ/)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details: ʋ hasn't been a listed symbol in Help:IPA/Serbo-Croatian for three years (see Special:Diff/1161939637), so any instance of it inside a Serbo-Croatian-family IPA template is a stray labiodental-approximant symbol that should be the plain /v/.

Workflow:

  1. Searches incategory:"Pages with Serbo-Croatian IPA" insource:/ʋ/ for candidate pages.
  2. On each candidate, replaces ʋ with v only inside {{IPA|sh}}, {{IPA|sr}}, {{IPA|hr}}, {{IPA|bs}}, and {{IPA|cnr}} calls.
  3. Many of these articles also carry a {{IPA|sl}} (Slovenian) transcription right next to the Serbo-Croatian one, and Slovenian distinguishes /ʋ/ from /v/ as a phoneme. The task is scoped to never touch {{IPA|sl}} or any code outside the five named.
  4. ɛ/ɔ occurrences are logged for manual review but not auto-corrected, per the original discussion, whether those should map to e/o is less clear-cut.

Sample diffs from a 15-page dry-run sample (2026-07-22): Yugoslavia, Novi Sad, Vlade Divac, Gavrilo Princip.

The task has an automated test suite (in the linked repository) covering: the five-code scope restriction (including a regression test that Slovenian/Macedonian codes are never matched), that replacement only touches text inside the matched template span, and that ɛ/ɔ are left untouched even inside an otherwise-matched span.

Discussion

Approved for trial (100 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 22:00, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

SnowyBot 2

Operator: SnowyRiver28 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 02:07, Saturday, April 25, 2026 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Here

Function overview: Standardises citations of Australian legal cases with the {{cite AustLII}} template

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Once a month

Estimated number of pages affected: ~800 currently

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details: This task will use regex to identify cite web templates linking to AustLII, a legal database used in Australia. The template {{cite AustLII}} standardises the referencing of legal cases, but there are around 800 references to AustLII (query here) that use the cite web template instead. After the initial run it could be scheduled to run on a regular basis to keep on top of new edits (wouldn't need to be very often). If this is successful a similar task could be applied in future to change from cite web to {{cite Legislation AU}}.

Discussion

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 22:54, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, trial log is at User:SnowyBot/Trials/Task 2 SnowyRiver28 (talk) 01:38, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
{{Operator assistance needed}} Any update? – DreamRimmer ■ 12:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
On hold. Just going to mark this as on hold given the operator looks to be away until September. Primefac (talk) 13:18, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Bots that have completed the trial period

FlammableBot 3

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

Time filed: 00:02, Thursday, August 6, 2026 (UTC)

Function overview: Takes all articles in Category:United States National Film Registry films and attempts to diffuse them into sub-categories such as Category:United States National Film Registry films inducted in 1989 based on induction year.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (PyWikiBot)

Source code available: https://gitlab.com/flammablepizza/FlammableBot/-/blob/main/task3.py

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot requests#Sorting Films, WP:DIFFUSE

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 707

Namespace(s): Mainspace/Articles

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes (through default PyWikiBot settings)

Function details: This bot uses a csv file found here, which is based off this table from loc.gov. The bot checks the title of each page in Category:United States National Film Registry films and attempts to check it against the csv file. If found, it replaces instances of Category:United States National Film Registry films in the article with Category:United States National Film Registry films inducted in XXXX, where XXXX is the induction year listed in the csv file. The bot only saves its changes there is a diff of exactly 17 bytes added. If any step fails, it saves the article title to a file to be manually checked later (which is a small number of articles).

I used the latest version of the script to generate a full list of diffs visible here (only difference between this and a regular run is skipping saving the changes). Scrolling through them, I do not see any out-of-place changes. I am also aware that most of the needed sub-categories do not exist yet; I will create them before the bot runs.

Discussion

This BRFA and bot were created on behalf of the request at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Sorting Films. As the category originally contained over 900 articles before subcategorization (150 articles have already been subcategorized), this seemed to be a suitable bot request and candidate for diffusion. FlammablePizza (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

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.

Related

No related data.

Recommendations