A bot -- short for robot and also called an internet bot -- is a computer program that operates as an agent for a user or other program or to simulate a human activity. Bots are normally used to automate certain tasks, meaning they can run without specific instructions from humans.

In the most typical case, a bot logs in to its own account and requests pages from Wikipedia in much the same way as a browser does – although it does not display the page on screen, but works on it in memory – and then programmatically examines the page code to see if any changes need to be made.

Not any time soon. Its technical backend is operated by a charitable foundation which has put aside a substantial endowment, and the site itself is operated by volunteers, so even if for whatever reason all donations stopped tomorrow, it could keep running for quite some time.