Wikipedia talk:Bot policy

This is not the place to request a bot, request approval to run a bot, or to complain about an individual bot

To request that a bot be created, see Wikipedia:Bot requests.
To request approval to run a bot, see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval.
To report malfunctioning bots, follow the advice in Wikipedia:Bot policy#Dealing with issues.
To discuss something else bot-related, see Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard.

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The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

This policy page has been mentioned by a media organization:

Robert Gorwa (23 October 2017). "Twitter has a serious bot problem, and Wikipedia might have the solution". Quartz. Retrieved 2017-10-23.

BAG nomination

Hi! I have nominated myself for BAG membership. Your comments would be appreciated on the nomination page. Thanks! – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Looks like quite a number of BOTS your working on! Is there anyway to view the source code for these on github/others? THANKS! Ashersea (talk) 03:21, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Testing bots

If I were to create a bot, but it only edited under my userspace (say, for testing purposes) without having been approved, would that be a violation of the policy, or can I test a bot like this? Element10101 T ~ C 16:54, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

@Element10101: See WP:BOTUSERSPACE. I.e. it's fine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:00, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! Element10101 T ~ C 19:09, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

AI agents

I've seen various people talking about AI agents and the bot policy, and (IMO at least) getting some parts of it wrong. I started drafting an essay at User:Anomie/AI agents and the bot policy and I'd appreciate input from others on the talk page there. Copy edits and filling in the "See also" would also be welcomed. Anomie ⚔ 13:53, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Nice, thanks for doing that. Primefac (talk) 11:16, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I am very struck by the idea of having a statement in there addressed to the agent!

I think it would be worth having a clear statement on this page (and possibly also on Wikipedia:Bots) explicitly mentioning autonomously operating AI agents and saying they are considered within the scope of the bot policy. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Meh. I think anyone would be hard pressed to interpret the existing definition Bots (short for "robots") generally make automated changes or actions. in a way that would not already include autonomously operating AI agents. To avoid WP:CREEP, that's why I proposed an essay instead. If people like it well enough, we could move it to the Wikipedia namespace, swap {{essay}} for {{supplement}}, and link it from the policy's "See also" section. Anomie ⚔ 02:33, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for putting some time into this. I'm amused by the statement addressed to agents, but since it's there, I would include a statement based on Using LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited, save for copyediting one's own work and machine translation. from WP:LLM or the policy version at WP:LLMARTICLE. AI agents are not trusted to interpret sources, generate citations, or perform any other editing tasks other than copyediting and machine translation. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 03:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Note this essay is supposed to be about the bot policy, not all policies, to avoid WP:CREEP. It does instruct the agent that it must follow all other English Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Anomie ⚔ 12:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Is removing the second blank line before a stub template per STUBSPACING considered COSMETICBOT?

According to WP:STUBSPACING, "the [second blank line before a stub template] should be removed when encountered."

My assumption is that, however, that this edit would not qualify as a substantive edit as defined by WP:COSMETICBOT. Is that understanding correct? ~ rusty ^meow ~ 22:40, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Technically, no, it's not cosmetic as it changes the amount of space shown above the stub template (more obvious in some skins than others, but it's nonzero for me in Firefox in Monobook, Vector, and Vector 2022 with standard or large font sizes). But getting approval to have a bot do this as a standalone edit would still need consensus, since it seems likely people might complain anyway. Anomie ⚔ 22:52, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think I'd approve a bot for that specific task anyway. Besides, based on this conversation it seems like it doesn't really matter how many spaces there are (though AWB is set for a certain spacing as a genfix). Primefac (talk) 23:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

I think a bot making only this change would be seen as effectively cosmetic, mostly because it's not fixing a problem. Two blank lines works fine, one blank line works fine, and apparently no blank lines works fine as well. Making this change as part of other fixes should be fine. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

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