Help:Bots

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This page is for outlining basic step towards running a 'bot on Wiktionary. This is a companion page to WT:BOTS.

Preliminaries

There are several things you need to do to become a 'bot operator.

  1. Download and install python.
  2. Download and install Pywikibot.
  3. Create an account that has "Bot" as the last three characters of the username. (Usually capital "B" — not strictly enforced.)
  4. Get community approval for what you want to do.
  5. Run some tests.
  6. Garner as much feedback as you can.
  7. Run some more tests.
  8. Start a WT:VOTE for approval. (Only done for recurring tasks, not one-time things.)

Downloading and installing Python is quite straight-forward, and well documented depending on the flavor you pick (e.g. Linux, Windows, Mac, Solaris, VMS, etc.) Estimated time: 25 minutes.

Downloading the 'pywikipediabot' framework is the "normal" type of download from http://sf.net/. When you "tar -zxvf" or "unzip" the file, you get a directory full of different programs. Since Python is an interpreted language, you can simply view all the programs before running them. Most of the "framework" programs are pretty self-explanatory, particularly looking at the input parameters parsing sections. Setting up the "user-config.py" file (all four lines) tends to give people lots of trouble - please remember to read the FAQ first. Make sure there is no indentation and that the last line is blank. Estimated time: 35 minutes (reading instructions)

To test that all is working, do $ python logon.py to see that it runs OK. Note that your cookies will usually persist for quite a while.

Now that you are a new bot operator, check out WT:BOT/T to see if there are any pending requests for you to fulfil.

See also

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia