Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles

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The February 2024 (FEB24) drive has officially concluded

Greetings everyone,

The February 2024 (FEB24) backlog drive for WikiProject Unreferenced articles has officially concluded, and I am thrilled to announce the remarkable progress we have achieved together. Our goal for this drive was to bring the backlog down to below 100,000 articles, and I'm proud to say that we succeeded, reaching 97,343 articles—a significant decrease of 14,300 articles from the starting point of 111,643.

I extend my heartfelt appreciation to all participants for their dedication and hard work. Awards have been distributed to recognize each participant's invaluable contributions.

Special recognition is due to @JTtheOG, who secured first place with an impressive 1431 points, @Lacanthrope, who earned second place with 1345 points, and @Egeymi, who demonstrated exceptional commitment in third place with 925 points.

With the drive concluded, the drive page has been archived. The users who helped organize this drive are @CactiStaccingCrane, @ARandomName123, @Broc, and @Kazamzam. I also played a small part in organizing the drive. Now, we are eager to hear your feedback on the drive and any suggestions you may have for future initiatives. Your input will help us improve and plan more effective drives in the future.

Thank you all for your tireless efforts in enhancing the reliability and quality of Wikipedia. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:31, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations all 👏👏👏 //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 23:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you to everyone, especially the organisers. This was a really exciting drive, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I've since signed up for the WikiProject, if others might be interested in joining me! IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 00:17, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for their hard work and dedication. I agree with Ignatius that this was lots of fun, and if there's another drive sometime in the future I'd be more than keen to participate again. ― novov (t c) 08:33, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I forgot to mention in the previous message that 292 users signed up for this drive, and 218 users received awards for sourcing unsourced articles. These numbers are quite impressive, and to the best of my knowledge, they represent the highest participation we've seen in any drive thus far. – DreamRimmer (talk) 08:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

It was great! Let's make this a regular thing :)) — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 17:39, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

It was a party! See you all at the 2040 drive for articles with only one source :D //Replayful (talk | contribs) 17:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

😂😂😂 Lookin forward to it. JTtheOG (talk) 18:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

This is the future that I'm looking for :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 06:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Killing Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2024

Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2024 has less articles than Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2024! This might be a bit ambitious, but could we manage to axe the March 2024 beast in this month? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 06:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Huh, only 91 articles? That's actually pretty impressive, and axing it definitely possible, as long as people continue to work on it. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 18:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm working on it too. We soon need to form an alliance with NPP and AFC, just saying :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh, looks like the dream is dead (for now). There's been a big uptick in new additions over the last few days, and now we're sitting at nearly 500. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 15:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

On March 1 and 2, I was trying to patrol the category and made great headway. I've probably knocked at least 30-40 out. A lot of the 'discovered' unsourced articles are sort of in batches of related articles, probably mass created... if we can find a good source for one of them, that should make serious progress on the category. ForksForks (talk) 01:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we should ask Wikipedia:WikiProject Handball for help? They are only semi-active but there are very many unreferenced handball articles in there at the moment! Turtlecrown (talk) 23:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Depreciating new unsourced articles

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Depreciating new unsourced articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

April 2024

Happy spring, party people! I hope everyone is doing swimmingly.

• Headline: As a result of the first annual drive, which was a smash success, we have cleared 18,096 articles between today and January 4th, the equivalent of what we might do in ~9 months (based on previous averages). For yourself and your fellow editors, please clap.

• Highlights: All categories from October 2007 to May 2008 have been emptied! We are finally down to backlog that is less than 16 years and below 100,000 unreferenced articles for the first time...well, since we went over 100,000 articles.

• Low-hanging fruit: June 2008 is hovering at an enticing 88 articles left, a very lucky number.

• High-hanging fruit: Everyone's favourite BFC (Big Friendly Category), December 2009, is a willowy 12,925 articles as of this writing - half the calories, but just as much body as the original. The other high-hanging fruit are, still, the Frustrating Five (name open for revision): February 2016 (921), April 2019 (1095), May 2019 (2250), June 2019 (4699), and September 2020 (1432); September 2020 had the lowest percentage of change from January to April. Godspeed to anyone working on these.
• Announcements: The village pump discussion started by comrade in arms @CactiStaccingCrane is ongoing, see above.
• Results: July 2012 edged out August 2012, 534 to 539.
• New challenge: not one, not two, but THREE ties: September/October 2010 (314); April/May 2012 (364); and September/October 2018 (395). Some kind of triple Jellybean (my cat) in a hat prize awaits the person who tips all three of these.

Happy editing and for everyone watching the solar eclipse, please remember to wear eye protection! Best, Kazamzam (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kazamzam, please remove the old signature and add a new one with the current timestamp :) – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:47, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kazamzam: the village pump proposal you mentioned above doesn't work for me. is it still open? --Engineerchange (talk) 18:20, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Engineerchange, It’s still open. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Deprecating ''new'' unsourced articles. – DreamRimmer (talk) 18:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer: I see; there was just a spelling error in the above one: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Deprecating new unsourced articles ("Depreciating" vs. "Deprecating") --Engineerchange (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kazamzam Nice. The consensus around that discussion seems to be draftifying articles, so I will propose that articles should be formally draftify if they don't have an inline source. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Ecuador

Does anyone know why all these talk pages of referenced articles are showing as unreferenced articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unreferenced_Ecuador_articles? And how we can address it? Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 19:36, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Boleyn - it's part of the project banner text {{WikiProject Ecuador|importance=Low|imageneeded=no|unref=yes}} We would, I believe, need to go in and address each one manually. Doable if time-consuming. Kazamzam (talk) 19:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Could we get an AWB run or bot to automatically add the {{unreferenced}} to all articles with the unref=yes but without any tag on the main page? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:03, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Boleyn - the issue is that the tags are often outdated and some of them now have references, so that would likely be very unproductive. Kazamzam (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion - criteria Ambox for unref. articles

Greetings, Last week at Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2008, for the first dozen or so articles, I added a "Notice" tag (being Bold). Today, I fine-tuned it a bit into a transcluded "Ambox", just the first 3 articles. With the four criteria more visible, hoping it helps both beginners and a call-to-action for more advanced editors. Asking for feedback and discussion here. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Here is the wikilink Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Criteria

JoeNMLC (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• The four criteria seem to be better suited for articles tagged for notability issues. Citations just have to be reliable. Primary, nonindependent and passing mentions are all usable (within wp:primary).

Obviously, sources that satisfy all criteria are preferred, but we don’t want people avoiding adding an otherwise fine reference just because it doesn’t have sigcov or something. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 14:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• You're conflating notability and verifiability here. Citations in an article are there to verify the content of the article: they have to be to reliable sources, but need not meet your three other criteria. "Significant coverage in independent, secondary reliable sources" is how we judge notability, but that's not something readers need to worry about. If sources showing notability need to be presented somewhere, the talk page is probably best. But in the vast majority of cases that doesn't come up until notability is challenged at WP:AFD.

This seems to be a common enough mistake that we ought to have an essay explaining it... – Joe (talk) 15:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

And just to add, if what you're concerned about is notability, there are already a range of tags for that. {{GNG}} is probably the closest to your wording. – Joe (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Joe - Thanks. The template docs for the GNG has specific guidelines & that is helpful. JoeNMLC (talk) 12:03, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think this addition to the existing maintenance tag is necessary or helpful. The second sentence of the unreferenced tag is 'Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.' with the link to the 'Referencing for Beginners' essay so I think this is a total non-issue that is just creating more work. Why do you feel this is necessary? Also having multiple maintenance tags removes the automatic search links to Google, Books, Scholar, JSTOR, etc. which I find very convenient so as an experienced editor, it is making my work 1% more difficult. Also+also agree with the above notes about notability and verification from Joe and ARN123. Kazamzam (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
• I agree with Kazamzam. We already have tags that cover these various issues. I understand the desire to have more refined tags that cover more subjects but I think this ultimately is overly confusing for readers and editors. Also consider that we track various types of issues by categories and a tag like this muddies that approach. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 16:16, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
• Thank you, everyone! - For clarity & explaining why "not" to do what I attempted. Today, I did "undo self" for those June 2008 unref. articles. Going forward, I'm adding parts of this discussion to my "Article cleanup" notes. So as not to forget. Cheers, JoeNMLC (talk) 12:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Empty references sections?

Is there any guidance on whether or not unreferenced articles should have: "==References==, {{reflist}}"? It's pretty convenient not having to type it out, especially if I'm using the visual editor. ARandomName123 (talk) 22:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I see people add these in relatively often. Sometimes the random article patrollers that add unreferenced tags to stuff throw them on. I don't really ever see people removing them, so I assume it's okay to do if you want. ForksForks (talk) 01:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I add them, as when looking through to add references, I am looking for easy references to add, and to see if there is a references section. This way at least one is completed, even if I struggle with the references themselves. I have had them removed by a couple of editors just seeing it as an empty section, though for me this is an essential section awaiting completion, as opposed to an unneeded section. Boleyn (talk) 13:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I think somebody already suggested this, but I can't remember where: it'd be great if {{Reflist}} on a page with no references displayed something useful. "This article does not contain any inline citations or footnotes. Please help improve this article by adding some" – something like that. – Joe (talk) 10:03, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I really like this suggestion, @Joe Roe! Broc (talk) 15:21, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Followed up at Template talk:Reflist#Making empty reflists useful. – Joe (talk) 08:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I've been removing these because I don't think they help readers and could cause confusion. The idea to make {{Reflist}} smarter may help. In the meantime, there is {{Empty section}} which has a |find= option that could help with sourcing. ~Kvng (talk) 22:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Backlog

Today it has reached 94,999! I realise it may have bounced back by the time people see this, but it is nice to see it fall to this. Unref BLPs now also under 1000. Boleyn (talk) 07:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Boleyn It's going to reach 94500 soon... At this rate, we cite 500 articles every week. This means that it will take 3 years and 33 weeks (3.5 years) to completely clear the backlog.

Should we make another citation drive soon, around June? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 06:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

oh boy oh boy Cielquiparle (talk) 08:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

How do we feel about two backlog drives a year? One in February and one in June/July (TBD)? Assuming each drive reduces the backlog by around 10k, each drive is worth around 20 weeks, meaning we can bring the time to completely clear the backlog down to just 2 or so years. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:54, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

...and a third one in October. Cielquiparle (talk) 01:24, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

That sounds good - anything to keep momentum going :) Boleyn (talk) 07:53, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Also we don't have many sub-categories based on topic, or a search box for keywords - I don't know how easy it is to do those or if they exist and I am just missing them! Boleyn (talk) 09:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

They do exist! If you take a look at Category:Articles lacking sources there is a yellow box showing articles based on certain topics. You can also type your search term in the normal search box, then paste incategory:"All articles lacking sources‎" next to it. For example, if you want to find banana articles in the backlog, you would search banana incategory:"All articles lacking sources‎". CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks! Boleyn (talk) 15:14, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok this is interesting... Currently there is 93,481 uncited articles, so a decrease of 1000 articles in 5 days. So right now we are working on these articles at the rate of 200 articles per day. If that's the case then we only need to take 467 days or around 15.5 months to finish the backlog. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

So I (roughly) plotted the monthly count starting in January 2022, and assuming a backlog drive every 6 months, we are headed for a completion date of around early to mid 2026. Without any backlog drives (so assuming FEB24 didn't happen), we would only finish up by January 2030. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 18:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

It's always nice to work on something when there is some momentum. It looks like it could dip under 93,000 today. I'm aware I have been using the 'incategory' search to pick up some low-hanging fruit, and that I'm not working at the moment, so I am removing more from the category than I would be able to keep up. Maybe an extra editor or two working on it could help, if people know there's a big push at the moment. Boleyn (talk) 10:30, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

same, momentum is something that is very hard to get... Should we get wikiprojects to join the effort? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Below 93000 article. Things are about to get interesting. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Should we get wikiprojects to join the effort?, would someone be able to do some analysis on which projects have the most unreferenced articles in their scopes? As well as directly helping with sourcing - they could provide the best guidance on where to find good sources. If it turns out that there is any one project that covers more than, I dunno, 15% of the unfererenced articles then that could be a theme for the next drive. -- D'n'B-t -- 11:55, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

91,998! Boleyn (talk) 20:02, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Yo, I saw this page and that inspired me to become an editor! Time to nuke the backlog eh? BacklogKiller (talk) 02:44, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@BacklogKiller: Welcome! Very fitting name you got there :) ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@BacklogKiller: Welcome! Don't be afraid to post on this talk page (or ask at WP:Teahouse) if you encounter any confusing scenarios on your journey. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 02:59, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@BacklogKiller: Awesome name. Glad you're here.★Trekker (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Found a source for all Kenyan villages: [1] BacklogKiller (talk) 13:05, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2008 only have one left. I must say, how could you guys cite so many articles so fast? BacklogKiller (talk) 10:32, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Indian villages

It would be great if there's like a government source that has a list of villages. That way I don't need to search for eternity for sources for each villages. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:40, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

National or even state-level information on villages is difficult (see this article on lacking village data). I usually search the district's website using a Google "site:" search. Turtlecrown (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Help

Can someone help me find sources for: BacklogKiller (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

• Districts of Algeria

Idea discussion: Teaming up with specific Wikiprojects

Let's continue the discussion about teaming up with other WikiProjects. This came up in the context of the WP:FEB24 backlog drive, but also outside of it. Maybe a more automagical editor can do some more efficient querying but I thought I'd get the ball rolling by throwing a few queries into PetScan based on some familiar faces I've seen along the journey. Note that it's even more haphazard as I've sometimes had to experiment to pick a subcategory tree depth that makes sense.

Added percentages based on @D'n'B's suggestion above. Category total at the time of writing is 91,777 articles.

Category	Possible WikiProject	Petscan query (Category)	Petscan query (WikiProject template)	Articles (2024-05-13) (Category)	Articles (2024-05-14) (WikiProject)	% of total (Category)
Category:Albums	WP:WikiProject Albums	28294450	28295323	7,062	6,846	7.69%
Category:Association football	WP:WikiProject Football	28290734	28295369	4,537	4,041	4.94%
Category:Military history	WP:WikiProject military history or a task force	28291676	28295531	3,962	2,145	4.32%
Category:Villages in India	WP:WikiProject India or a working group	28290438	N/A	3,196	N/A	3.48%
Category:Geography of Germany	WP:WikiProject Germany / WP:WikiProject Geography	28306864	N/A	2,668	N/A	2.91%
Category:Railway stations	WP:WikiProject Stations	28306878	TBC	2,453	2074 using Infobox Station	2.67%
Category:Data transmission	WP:WikiProject Telecommunications / WP:WikiProject Computing	28291520	N/A	2,295	N/A	2.50%
Category:Films	WP:WikiProject Film	28306934	N/A	2,002	N/A	2.18%
Category:Educational institutions	WP:WikiProject Schools / WP:WikiProject Education	28306873	N/A	1,524	N/A	1.66%
Category:Geography of Kenya	WP:WikiProject Kenya / WP:WikiProject Geography	28306800	N/A	1,524	N/A	1.66%
Category:Roads	partly WP:WikiProject Highways	28306924	N/A	1,429	N/A	1.56%
Category:Handball	WP:WikiProject Handball	28289759	can't make query work	320	unknown	0.35%

Turtlecrown (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC); edited to include WikiProject template queries and more Categories by Turtlecrown (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC) and 15:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Most Wikiprojects are pretty moribund from what I understand.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I can try to start something over at WP:Albums — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 02:08, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sturmvogel 66 maybe, but both Millitary History and Football seem to be pretty live and kicking. Thanks for the number crunching Turtlecrown. Let's see what sort of collaboration (alliance? team?) they'd be most interested in. -- D'n'B-t -- 06:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Good idea. I should have said that it was worth a try, but just don't expect a lot of participation.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

That would be great PerfectSoundWhatever - I just ran an extra query for Albums and I think it might be the biggest one. -- D'n'B-t -- 07:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I had skipped over albums as I was initially confused by Category:Unreferenced album articles which states "Articles are added to this category by setting the "unref=yes" switch of Template:WikiProject Albums". This is a similar situation to the Ecuador discussion above, except the category is empty. I was trying to find out if the WikiProject already had some infrastructure to deal with articles that land in the category and if we could work with that. So I'll summarise my findings here (TLDR: probably not).

1. The parameter and category were added by formerly very active (till 2015) user @Keraunoscopia in 2011 as part of the B-Class article checklist.
2. A least one editor at WP:Albums, @Champion, was actively adding standard unreferenced templates instead in 2018, providing this search which currently shows 6,759 articles with Infobox Album and an unref template.
3. Deletion was NC in 2019 as the parameter is still part of the template though not actively in use. Another 2021 suggestion to remove the param went unanswered.

It sounds like the category is only still there as nobody has removed the parameter from the template. However, I see potential here in collaborating with such WikiProject tracking efforts. This could also tie in with desires from this WikiProject (eg 1, 2, 3) to have more specific topic categories of articles needing references, whether or not a project ultimately has capacity to assist. Turtlecrown (talk) 09:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure these PetScan queries are giving reliable results... I tried running one for Category:Archaeology and I had to scroll down to the 300s to find something even marginally in the scope of WP:ARCHAEO. Have you tried querying for the intersection of talk pages with something from Category:Articles by WikiProject and articles needing sources? – Joe (talk) 09:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

The problem is partly with the web-like (rather than strictly tree-like) structure of categories. The depth on your above search was set to 9 which is very high for such a large category that "contains" other large categories such as Category:Cultural heritage. The above query returns 22019 articles. Setting the depth as 4 gives PSID 28295171 with 633 articles. It works better with more specific categories, eg Category:Archaeology by location which gives 237 articles at PSID 28295201. If we're strictly talking about articles already in WikiProjects it's definitely better to use Talk page templates, which gives 80 unreferenced WP:ARCHEO articles per PSID 28295129. Turtlecrown (talk) 09:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I added some more queries based on the inclusion of a WikiProject template on the article's Talk page (where a project exists specifically for that topic), but it doesn't always work and I don't know why. I also can't get categories from Category:Articles by WikiProject to work despite trying a few approaches from the PetScan docs. This approach of course assumes that unreferenced articles have always been assigned to a WikiProject. Apart from ones that might have been missed, WikiProject Albums for example doesn't claim about 100 Category:Albums unreferenced articles that are EPs and music DVDs (the remaining ~200 are discographies). Turtlecrown (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Albums would certainly be a great category to get down. Boleyn (talk) 09:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

or you can go to [2], pick a wikiproject, go to "by cat" and "Cites no sources" 113.160.44.130 (talk) 09:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that if you allow for both categories sometimes being too broad and project templates sometimes missing, then the "true" number of articles that could be said to belong to a topic is somewhere between the two, and anyway, both sets of numbers are in agreement about which are the largest topics. But I think the choice of topic to theme a backlog drive around lies in where there's the most enthusiasm. Albums/musicians/music might well be the one. -- D'n'B-t -- 17:50, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, WikiProject United States results in 2,181 results, per PSID 28298668. --Engineerchange (talk) 18:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)