Forum:Botting

Hey guys! I saw someone post on Uberfuzzy's talk page about creating a bot, and it got me curious. Are we able to create bots on wikia sites and if so, how can they be used? Thanks. Karate Jesus  18:16, 11 November 2009
 * Yes you can. For example, you can use the Pywikipedia frame or the Auto Wiki Browser. You'll have to request a bot flag using Special:Contact, though. Mark (Talk) • (Contribs) 18:27, November 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Another question, though. I'm rather new to botting (but I tend to learn fast). So, which program would be better for deleting, tagging, etc.? I got the impression that Pywikipedia would be, but I'm no pro. Karate Jesus  19:00, 11 November 2009


 * pywikipedia bot stuff is more complex to setup and use, but in the end is much more powerful and flexible on what you can make it do, but its not very friendly.
 * AWB is sometimes a hassle, and is a bit overwhelming its self, but it atleast has a GUI to use, and not just a bunch of commands.
 * each have their own communities, and lots of help exists for both all over the place. I would recommend you start with AWB first. --Uberfuzzy 19:09, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * Another option that I use personally (I've written many, many bots for my own wiki, some very complex) is the MediaWiki::API module for Perl. It's basically just a simple wrapper around the MediaWiki API calls. Surgo 23:45, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

Start with AWB. If you are doing any complex matching, I'd also recommend a regular expression debugger like Regexbuddy. It saves time no matter how experienced you are at balancing parens. 08:50, November 12, 2009 (UTC)