Today, Wikipedia bots occupies a central place in society. Its importance and relevance are reflected in all aspects of daily life, from politics and economics to entertainment and culture. Wikipedia bots has captured the attention of experts and fans alike, generating passionate debates and divergent opinions. In this article we will explore the influence and impact of Wikipedia bots in different areas, analyzing its evolution over time and its projection into the future. From its origins to its role today, Wikipedia bots has not only left its mark on history, but also continues to shape the world we live in.
Wikipedia bots are Internet bots (computer programs) that perform simple, repetitive tasks on Wikipedia. One prominent example of an internet bot used in Wikipedia is Lsjbot, which generated millions of short articles across various language editions of Wikipedia.
Computer programs, called bots, have often been used to automate simple and repetitive tasks, such as correcting common misspellings and stylistic issues, or to start articles, such as geography entries, in a standard format from statistical data. Additionally, there are bots designed to automatically notify editors when they make common editing errors (such as unmatched quotes or unmatched parentheses).
Anti-vandalism bots like ClueBot NG, created in 2010 are programmed to detect and revert vandalism quickly. Bots are able to indicate edits from particular accounts or IP address ranges, as occurred at the time of the shooting down of the MH17 jet incident in July 2014 when it was reported edits were made via IPs controlled by the Russian government.
Bots on Wikipedia must be approved before activation.
A bot once created up to 10,000 articles on the Swedish Wikipedia in a day. According to Andrew Lih, the current expansion of Wikipedia to millions of articles would be difficult to envision without the use of such bots. The Cebuano, Swedish and Waray Wikipedias are known to have high numbers of bot-created content.
One way to sort bots is by what activities they perform: