The Lives of Bots

Understand

Automated software agents --- or bots --- have long been an important part of how Wikipedia's volunteer community of editors write, edit, update, monitor, and moderate content.

• In this paper, I discuss the complex social and technical environment in which Wikipedia's bots operate.
• This paper focuses on the establishment and role of English Wikipedia's bot policies and the Bot Approvals Group, a volunteer committee that reviews applications for new bots and helps resolve conflicts between Wikipedians about automation.
• In particular, I examine an early bot controversy over the first bot in Wikipedia to automatically enforce a social norm about how Wikipedian editors ought to interact in discussion spaces.