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 group="W">[[Wikipedia:Bots]]</ref><ref name="meetbots">{{cite news |last=Nasaw |first=Daniel |date=July 24, 2012 |title=Meet the 'bots' that edit Wikipedia |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18892510|access-date=February 2, 2023|archive-date=July 28, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728024625/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18892510|url-status=live}}</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|archive-date = February 20, 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220220203949/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/jul/26/boot-up-wikipedia-apple|url-status = live}}</ref> One controversial contributor, [[Sverker Johansson]], created articles with his bot [[Lsjbot]], which was reported to create up to 10,000 articles on the Swedish Wikipedia on certain days.<ref>{{cite news |last=Jervell |first=Ellen Emmerentze |date=July 13, 2014 |title=For This Author, 10,000 Wikipedia Articles Is a Good Day's Work |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://online.wsj.com/articles/for-this-author-10-000-wikipedia-articles-is-a-good-days-work-1405305001|url-status=live|url-access=registration|access-date=August 18, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127185020/https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-this-author-10-000-wikipedia-articles-is-a-good-days-work-1405305001|archive-date=January 27, 2023}}</ref> Additionally, there are bots designed to automatically notify editors when they make common editing errors (such as unmatched quotes or unmatched parentheses).<ref group="W">{{Cite news |last=Aude |date=March 23, 2009 |title=Abuse Filter is enabled |work=[[The Signpost]] |publisher=Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-03-23/Abuse_Filter|access-date=February 2, 2023|archive-date=March 22, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322114624/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-03-23/Abuse_Filter|url-status=live}}</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]] in July 2014 when it was reported that edits were made via IPs controlled by the Russian government.<ref>{{cite web |date=July 21, 2014 |title=MH17 Wikipedia entry edited from Russian government IP address |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2014/7/21/mh17-wikipedia-entry-edited-from-russian-government-ip-address|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116002928/https://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201407211855-0023944|archive-date=November 16, 2016|access-date=July 22, 2014 |website=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]]}}</ref> Bots on Wikipedia must be approved before activation.<ref group="W">[[Wikipedia:Bot policy]]</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>{{Cite book |last=Lih |first=Andrew |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/232977686 |title=The Wikipedia Revolution |publisher=[[Hachette Books]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4013-0371-6 |pages=99–106 |oclc=232977686|access-date=February 2, 2023|archive-date=August 6, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806070928/http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/232977686|url-status=live}}</ref>