Wikipedia:Bot-created articles

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Wikipedia:Bot-created articles - Wikipedia

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This is an essay.

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WP:BOTARTICLE

This page in a nutshell: Articles can sometimes be created by bots, but they need consensus to ensure the articles are acceptable

Sometimes articles are created by a bot. The issue has been controversial, this page discusses some arguments for and against it and the current guidance. The current guideline for creating articles with a bot is set out at WP:MASSCREATION meaning consensus is required to ensure that they comply with Wikipedia's guidelines.

Proponents of bot generated articles point to the fact that a bot can create large numbers of articles that are correctly formatted without constant oversight and are less likely to make errors providing they are programmed correctly. Opponents of bot generated articles point to articles being bland and uninformative and bots that do make errors or create articles of dubious notability.

What could be created by bot

There is a limited number of things that are suitable for automatic creation. In all cases:

All articles should meet notability requirements
All articles must be reliably sourced (this generally means having one or more high-quality databases covering the topic at hand)
The articles, as created by the bot, must be in a generally acceptable state to not overly burden the community with tedious maintenance
The bot complies with all the terms of WP:MASSCREATION, including having a successful WP:BRFA, following widely advertised discussions

For example, a bot could create articles on comets, based on the COBS database. Provided

That the articles created complied with WP:NASTRO
That COBS was considered an acceptable source
That the resulting articles were considered good additions to Wikipedia
That the bot creation of those articles was extensively advertised, discussed, trialled, and ultimately approved.

However, whether or not such a bot should create such articles is up to the community.

What should usually not be created by bots

Any topic that might not meet the notability guidelines.
Any topic where the source database would be considered unreliable.
Any topic where the article cannot be adequately summarized by an automated process.

Notable examples of bots

In 2002, Rambot created articles on 33,000 U.S. settlements from census data at rate of thousands per day. However, an error occurred in about 2,000 of those article, which caused significant headaches.
Prior to 2012, ClueBot II, created articles on ~20,000 asteroids from NASA but most were eventually found to be non-notable and redirected. This led to the creation of WP:NASTRO and WP:AST2000 in particular.
Lsjbot created several articles on species on the Swedish, Cebuano, Dutch, and Waray Wikipedias, to the point where the majority of articles on some of those have been bot-created.

What could be created by bot

What should usually not be created by bots

Notable examples of bots

See also