Commons:Bots/Requests

Shortcut: COM:BRFA

If you want to run a bot on Commons, you must get permission first. To do so, file a request following the instructions below.

Please read Commons:Bots before making a request for bot permission.

I	Create a user account (while logged in to your normal account) and user page for the bot On the bot's userpage, add {{Bot}}, which automatically adds the page to Category:Commons bots. Then add the following information to the bot's userpage (all this is mandatory): Operator: Who the creator/operator is and how they can best be contacted Tasks: Details of the bot's task or tasks Operation: Whether the bot is manually assisted or runs automatically When: When it operates (continuously, intermittently, or at specified intervals) Maximum edit rate: The bot's maximum edit rate (eg edits per minute) Language: The language and/or program that it is running
II	Write your program code. When you put a request at this page, you are expected to be ready for testing. If you are unsure and want to know if your intended bot job will be accepted, please seek community feedback at a suitable venue, e.g. Commons:Village pump.
III	Create your bot request: Replace "YourBotName" with your bot's username in the box below and click the button. Complete the questions on the resulting page and save it. Remember that your bot will be allowed to operate only for those tasks that you have specified in your request. Add your bot request to the list here: Edit the following request list, adding the following text to the top of the appropriate section (replacing "YourBotName" with your bot's name): {{Commons:Bots/Requests/YourBotName}}
IV	Test run Please make a small test run (5–20 edits) to allow other users to review your bot's tasks. (Please do not put your bot in automatic mode until the request is approved!)
V	Waiting for approval. You now need to wait for community approval. A bureaucrat will close the request and will also grant a bot flag, where necessary. Closed requests are moved to Commons:Bots/Archive.

Archives List all Requests Requests by closing date

Requests made on this page are automatically transcluded in Commons:Requests and votes for wider comment.

Requests for permission to run a bot

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Before making a bot request, please read the new version of the Commons:Bots page. Read Commons:Bots#Information on bots and make sure you have added the required details to the bot's page. A good example can be found here.

When complete, pages listed here should be archived to Commons:Bots/Archive.

Any user may comment on the merits of the request to run a bot. Please give reasons, as that makes it easier for the closing bureaucrat. Read Commons:Bots before commenting.

DreamRimmer bot (talk · contribs)

Operator: Max (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions)

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought: Automatically mark pages for translation if the current content of the page is identical to the content of the revision that is currently marked for translation. The bot is already doing the same thing on Meta (see m:User:DreamRimmer bot/TranslationBot) and looking at the large backlog at Special:PageTranslation it would be helpful to have the bot doing this here on Commons as well. Max has already confirmed interest in running the bot here and will cofirm this here, too.

Automatic or manually assisted: Automatic

Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous

Maximum edit rate (e.g. edits per minute): no edits, only logged actions

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): Y, also translation admin

Programming language(s): Python

Ameisenigel (talk) 08:43, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

• Confirming this request. Let me know if you have any questions. Max (talk) 15:03, 24 August 2026 (UTC)
•  Support. --Achim55 (talk) 10:10, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Bawolff bot (talk · contribs)

Operator: Bawolff (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions)

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought: Maintain lists of certain types of files for use with Commons:Explore. It will edit the .json subpages of Module:Explore. The goal is to create galleries that show off a random selection of commons files meeting some criteria. See also discussion at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2026/07#Replace_main_page_links_to_search_links

Automatic or manually assisted: Automatic unsupervised

Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Once a week

Maximum edit rate (e.g. edits per minute): ~8 edits a week.

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): No

Programming language(s): PHP

Bawolff (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Note: I did a test run, you can see the results at Special:Contributions/Bawolff_bot. However one of the edits during the test run was blocked by filter global-415. Bawolff (talk) 23:05, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

I think it makes much more sense to have dynamic gallery pages with WMF-server based implementation, not bot. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, the bot is not implementing the dynamic gallery, it is only maintaining a list of potential images for the gallery to choose from. The gallery itself is totally server side, it just needs to know which images are featured, etc. Any server side implementation would have to generate a similar list one way or another. Bawolff (talk) 00:58, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

what are the criteria for the file selection? How often will the pages be changed? Krd 13:13, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

My plan is to update the list once a week. However I'd also be happy to do it at a difference cadence if people prefer. The update is only needed to add new files that meet the criteria, so it would probably be fine to update it as infrequently as once every 3 months.

At present there are six lists (one of which is divided into three parts). The exact SQL query can be viewed at [1] as well as on the talk page of the pages in question. The criteria is designed to get a reasonable sampling of interesting files of each type. Specifically:

• 3D (list page, gallery page) - any 3D file
• Assessed (list page, gallery page) - any bitmap (excluding GIF) or SVG file that has any assessment template on it (i.e. 'Assessments', 'Quality_image', 'Valued_image', 'Featured picture', 'DelistedPicture', 'Photo_challenge_winner').
• Audio (list page, gallery page) - Any audio file with an assessment template on it (Mostly this means media of the day or featured media, but other assessment templates count too).
• Document (list page, gallery page) - PDF or DjVu file which is in use on a Wikimedia wiki in mainspace excluding wikimania, chapter wikis, meta, outreach, mediawiki.org or wikidata.
• Featured (list page, gallery page) - Any featured image (excluding videos and GIF animations)
• Video (list page, gallery page) - Any video file or GIF animation that has an assessment template on it or is in use on a wikimedia wiki in mainspace excluding Wikimania, Wikimedia chapter, meta, outreach or mediawiki.org.

Bawolff (talk) 01:31, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

Plánovací kalendář BOT (talk · contribs)

Operator: Plánovací kalendář (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions)

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought: Three batch tasks, run from PAWS with Pywikibot, mainly on Wikimedia Czech Republic category trees (campaigns, photo contests, edit-a-thons, GLAM, programs) and related Czech topical categories such as streets in Czech municipalities:

1. Category maintenance: creating, editing, moving and merging categories; converting hard category redirects to soft {{Category redirect}}; adding {{Wikidata Infobox}}; adding by-year and maintenance categories (e.g. diffusing files into "YYYY in Orlová" by year of creation and creating the missing yearly categories via a local template). The bot only adds categories (it does not strip existing parents) and derives the year from the file name, falling back to the Information date field, skipping upload dates and ambiguous cases.
2. Linking Commons categories to Wikidata: creating Wikidata items for WMCZ campaign editions, photo-contest editions and edit-a-thons; adding the commonswiki sitelink and the relevant statements (instance of, country, organizer, point in time, follows / followed by, part of, logo, representative image P18), and correcting incorrect statements where needed.
3. Structured data on Commons (SDC): setting the creator statement (P170) on the operator's own files only, to the operator's own Wikidata item (d:Q99692082). The bot acts only on files whose Information author field matches the operator's own known signatures, so it never converts or assigns authorship of third parties. (Note: these edits are currently disallowed by Special:AbuseFilter/265 for non-autopatrolled accounts, hence the autopatrol request below.)

Automatic or manually assisted: Manually assisted, supervised. Every batch is first run as a dry run, reviewed, then run live with the output monitored. Tasks are idempotent. Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Batch runs, repeated as needed (typically after WMCZ campaigns and events). Not continuous. Maximum edit rate (e.g. edits per minute): Up to about 6 per minute, usually slower, never faster than one edit per 5 seconds, and slower during peak hours.

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): Yes. Also requesting autopatrol, because some SDC edits (task 3) are disallowed by Special:AbuseFilter/265 for non-autopatrolled accounts. Programming language(s): Python (Pywikibot), run from PAWS. Test run:

• Task 1 (category maintenance):
  • By-year diffusion, creating the yearly category via the local template: [2]
  • By-year diffusion, adding the year category to a file: [3]
  • Sort key on a national street-name category: [4], [5]
  • Adding {{Wikidata Infobox}}
• Task 2 (Wikidata linking, edits on Wikidata)
• Task 3 (structured data): (currently blocked by Special:AbuseFilter/265 for non-autopatrolled accounts; will be added once autopatrol is granted)

Plánovací kalendář (talk) 21:04, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Please use edit summaries similar to Help:Gadget-HotCat when adding categories. I don't think that Wikidata item for task 3 is confirming Wikidata notability requirement. There are other ways to add attribution to Structured Data. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

On the edit summaries: agreed, I will switch the category edits to HotCat-style summaries (e.g. "+2015 in Orlová").

On task 3: thanks, that distinction is helpful. For files where the author is a User: link, the author-name-string approach you describe (already handled by an existing bot) makes sense, and I do not intend to duplicate that. My task targets the gap: files where the author is given via the {{Creator}} template. There the Creator template is already tied to a Wikidata item, so the natural P170 value is that same linked item rather than a string. In my own case that is d:Q99692082, which meets notability criterion 1 (Commons sitelink to Category:Tadeáš Bednarz), and I would set it only on my own uploads, never for third parties.

Does using the item that the Creator template already points to, as P170, seem reasonable to you for the Creator-template case? Plánovací kalendář (talk) 17:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I think both Wikidata item and {{Creator}} should be used for persons who are notable in Wikidata, Wikipedia, Wikisource, etc. terms, not for contributors of these projects. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:21, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Please summarize. Have all raised issues been addressed? --Krd 05:38, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

@Plánovací kalendář:  ? --Krd 13:05, 26 August 2026 (UTC)