EarwigBot v0.4 Documentation
============================

EarwigBot_ is a Python_ robot that edits Wikipedia_ and interacts with people
over IRC_.

History
-------

Development began, based on `Pywikibot`_, in early 2009. Approval for its
first task, a `copyright violation detector`_, was carried out in May, and the
bot has been running consistently ever since (with the exception of Jan/Feb 2011).
It currently handles `several ongoing tasks`_ ranging from statistics generation
to category cleanup, and on-demand tasks such as WikiProject template tagging.
Since it started running, the bot has made over 250,000 edits.

A project to rewrite it from scratch began in early April 2011, thus moving
away from the Pywikibot framework and allowing for less overall code, better
integration between bot parts, and easier maintenance.

.. _EarwigBot:                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EarwigBot
.. _Python:                         https://python.org/
.. _Wikipedia:                      https://en.wikipedia.org/
.. _IRC:                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
.. _PyPI:                           https://packages.python.org/earwigbot
.. _Pywikibot:                      https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Pywikibot
.. _copyright violation detector:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/EarwigBot_1
.. _several ongoing tasks:          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EarwigBot#Tasks

Contents
--------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   installation
   setup
   customizing
   toolset
   tips
   API Reference <api/modules>

Indices and tables
------------------

* :ref:`genindex`
* :ref:`modindex`
* :ref:`search`