Editing Wikipedia (section)

=== Automated editing ===
{{main|Wikipedia bots}}
Computer programs called [[Internet bot|bot]]s have often been used to perform 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.<ref>{{srlink|Wikipedia:Bots|Wikipedia Bot Information}}</ref><ref name="meetbots">{{cite news |title = Meet the 'bots' that edit Wikipedia |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18892510 |first = Daniel |last = Nasaw |work = BBC News |date = July 24, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last = Halliday |first = Josh |author2 = Arthur, Charles |title = Boot up: The Wikipedia vandalism police, Apple analysts, and more |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/jul/26/boot-up-wikipedia-apple |newspaper = [[The Guardian]] |date = July 26, 2012 |access-date = September 5, 2012}}</ref> One controversial contributor, {{ill|Sverker Johansson|sv}}, creating articles with his [[Lsjbot|bot]] was reported to create up to 10,000 articles on the Swedish Wikipedia on certain days.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://online.wsj.com/articles/for-this-author-10-000-wikipedia-articles-is-a-good-days-work-1405305001|title=For This Author, 10,000 Wikipedia Articles Is a Good Day's Work|last=Jervell|first=Ellen Emmerentze|date=July 13, 2014|work=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=August 18, 2014}}</ref> Additionally, there are bots designed to automatically notify editors when they make common editing errors (such as unmatched quotes or unmatched parentheses).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-03-23/Abuse_Filter |title = Wikipedia signpost: Abuse Filter is enabled |publisher = English Wikipedia |date = March 23, 2009 |access-date = July 13, 2010}}</ref><!-- And prevent the creation of links to particular websites. Bots also find and revert changes by suspicious new accounts, enforce bans against shared [[IP address]]es or the use of [[sockpuppet (Internet)|sockpuppet]]s by a banned person operating from an alternate IP address.(unsourced/unverifiable) --> Edits falsely identified by bots as the work of a banned editor can be restored by other editors. An anti-vandal bot is programmed to detect and revert vandalism quickly.<ref name="meetbots" /> Bots are able to indicate edits from particular accounts or IP address ranges, as occurred at the time of the shooting down of the [[Malaysia Airlines Flight 17|MH17 jet]] incident in July 2014 when it was reported that edits were made via IPs controlled by the Russian government.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201407211855-0023944 |title = MH17 Wikipedia entry edited from Russian government IP address |publisher = Al Jazeera |access-date = July 22, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116002928/https://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201407211855-0023944 |archive-date = November 16, 2016 |df = mdy |date = July 21, 2014}}</ref> Bots on Wikipedia must be approved before activation.<ref>{{srlink|Wikipedia:Bot policy|Wikipedia's policy on bots}}</ref>

According to [[Andrew Lih]], the current expansion of Wikipedia to millions of articles would be difficult to envision without the use of such bots.<ref>Andrew Lih (2009). ''[[The Wikipedia Revolution]]'', chapter ''Then came the Bots'', pp. 99–106.</ref>