Template:Bots/doc

This is a template for pages to specify whether or not they want visits from any bots, most bots or specific bots. This can be used to easily and explicitly opt-in or opt-out of unsolicited bot posts to user pages or to cause maintenance bots to avoid certain pages. Explicitly opting-in has the advantage of possibly receiving useful changes or targeted posts that might otherwise be skipped by the bot assuming a default "opt-out" behavior. These templates should be used mainly on the "User" and "User talk" namespaces and should be used carefully in other spaces.

In particular, in the article spaces:

• Avoid using the template as a blunt instrument
• Address the root problem with the bot owner or bot community
• Remove the template tag once the underlying problem has been resolved.

Usage

{{nobots}}                Ban all bots (shortcut)
{{bots}}                  Allow all bots (shortcut)

{{bots|allow=<botlist>}}  Ban all the bots not in the list
{{bots|deny=<botlist>}}   Ban all the bots in the list

Where <botlist> is a comma-delimited string of bot usernames:
  {{bots|allow=HagermanBot,Werdnabot}}

<botlist> can also be "none" or "all" as in the following examples:
  {{bots|allow=all}}      Allow all bots
  {{bots|allow=none}}     Ban all bots

  {{bots|deny=all}}       Ban all bots
  {{bots|deny=none}}      Allow all bots

Bots are not bound to observe the nobots tag, it will depend on their functionality, their owners and their terms of approval. The bots which currently support exclusion are listed at exclusion compliant bots.

Notes

• List of some interwiki bots

SieBot,A4Bot,AlleborgoBot,Thijs!bot,YurikBot,Tsca.bot,Eskimbot

Implementation

• Pywikipediabot supports bots and nobots since r4096. The templates may be ignored using a parameter.
• Since version 3.2.0.0 AutoWikiBrowser fully supports {{bots}} and {{nobots}}. Additionally, pseudo-username AWB can be specified to ban all AWB-based bots from the page. However, AWB has an option to ignore these templates.