Wikisource · Rate Limits

Wikisource Rate Limits

Wikisource uses the same MediaWiki rate-limit infrastructure as all Wikimedia projects. Read operations via the Action API have no hard published per-second ceiling but are subject to fair-use enforcement — serial requests and batched titles are strongly preferred over parallel bursts. The cached REST API v1 documents a soft 200 requests/s per-client ceiling. Write operations (edits, proofread-status changes) are governed by per-user-right server limits retrievable via action=query&meta=userinfo&uiprop=ratelimits. A contactable User-Agent is mandatory on all requests; omitting it may cause IP-level blocks without notice.

Wikisource Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for Wikisource on the APIs.io network, in the API Commons Rate Limits shape.

It captures 4 rate-limit definitions, measuring requests_per_second and varies.

Limit state is signalled in the retryAfter, rateLimitRemaining, and rateLimitReset response headers, and an exhausted limit returns HTTP 429.

This profile was written by API Evangelist and has not been verified against a page the provider published; treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.

The profile also includes 5 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for throttled, rateLimited, and serverBusy.

Tagged areas include Rate Limiting, Open Knowledge, Public Domain, and Literature.

4 Limits Exhausted: HTTP 429 retryAfterrateLimitRemainingrateLimitReset
Method: generated, dated 2026-06-13.
Written by API Evangelist on 2026-06-13 and not verified against a page the provider published. Treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.
View Source
Rate LimitingOpen KnowledgePublic DomainLiterature

Limits

REST API v1 - cached anonymous reads client
requests_per_second · second
200
Soft per-client cap on the Varnish-cached REST API v1 layer. Most requests are served from cache, so the limit primarily affects cold (uncached) paths and write-through scenarios.
Action API - read operations client
requests_per_second
serial (one in flight)
No hard speed number is published. Wikimedia expects clients to issue requests serially and to batch multiple page titles in a single call using pipe-separated values (titles=PageA|PageB|PageC) rather than issuing sequential single-item requests.
Action API - write operations account/right
varies
see action=query&meta=userinfo&uiprop=ratelimits
Per-user-right rate limits enforced server-side for edits, moves, uploads, and other data-modifying actions. Returns errorcode=ratelimited; retry with exponential backoff.
Action API - bot accounts account
requests_per_second
elevated (bot flag required)
Accounts with the bot flag receive higher write-rate limits. Apply through Wikisource community processes or via Wikimedia Stewards for cross-wiki bots.

Policies

Contactable User-Agent (Mandatory)
Every request must include a non-generic User-Agent header in the form "clientname/version (contact: email or URL) framework/version". Requests with browser-like or absent User-Agent strings may be blocked at IP level without warning.
Serial Requests Preferred
Issue read requests sequentially rather than in parallel. Use pipe-separated titles=A|B|C batching and list/generator queries to retrieve many items in a single round-trip instead of multiple parallel calls.
Use maxlag for Non-Interactive Jobs
Pass maxlag=5 (or a similarly conservative value) on bot or batch traffic. MediaWiki returns a maxlag-exceeded error during replication lag peaks, signalling the client to pause before retrying.
Exponential Backoff on ratelimited / 429
When the Action API returns errorcode=ratelimited or any API returns HTTP 429, apply exponential backoff with increasing delays between retries. Honour the Retry-After response header when present.
Prefer GET and Enable Compression
Use GET (cacheable) for all read operations and set Accept-Encoding: gzip to reduce payload sizes. Cache responses locally where appropriate to avoid redundant round-trips.

Sources

Work with this as data

Every rate limit here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

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Tools for rate limits

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  • find_rate_limitsBrowse and filter every rate limit in the catalog.
  • apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
  • resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
  • find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.
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