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Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/November 2024

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Welcome to the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles November 2024 backlog drive! At the start of the drive, there were 80,645 articles tagged as entirely without references on Wikipedia.

Reducing the number unsourced articles improves the quality of Wikipedia as a whole, verifying accurate information in articles and helping to remove the inaccurate.

To participate: (§ Detailed instructions)

  1. Find an article that is currently tagged as unreferenced.
  2. Add at least one inline citation of a reliable source to the article, then accurately update its tags.
  3. Include #NOV24 in the edit summary (once per article) to have your contributions counted in this drive. There must not be any immediately preceding characters before the hashtag.[a]

Reviewers will check submissions. 1 point will be awarded for adding references, and 0.5 points for each review. Mass deletion or tag removals are strictly prohibited.

The referencing portion of the drive runs from November 1, 00:00 UTC until December 1, 23:59 UTC. Only submissions made in this period will be counted. The review period of the drive extends until December 8 to allow time for additional reviews.

Where to get help

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For advice on adding references, read the § Tips on this page and the helpful guide at Wikipedia:Citing sources, or ask at the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles talk page.

If you have questions or concerns about the drive, please use the backlog drive talk page or contact the organizers, Kazamzam, Cielquiparle and ARandomName123. For technical issues, contact DreamRimmer, who is providing technical support for this drive.

Rules

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  1. 1 point for adding at least one inline citation from a reliable source to an unreferenced article, usually tagged with {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}}. Untagged, but unreferenced articles are also acceptable.
    • No points for simply listing references in a section.
    • To keep this drive focused, no points for adding additional citations to one article, though editors are encouraged to do so whenever possible.
    • Primary sources are permitted so long as they are only used to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts. Please see WP:PRIMARY.
    • If the article is not fully supported by the new reference, add {{citation needed}} as needed.
  2. 0.5 points for reviewing submissions of the drive. See more at /Reviews.
    • The point is less because reviewing submissions is easier than finding reliable sources. Nevertheless, reviewers have an extremely important job of verifying submissions and require a high level of trust.
  3. No points for deleting an article via AfD, PROD or blank and redirect. (See this discussion)
  4. All citing contributions without #NOV24 in the edit summary will not be counted. There must not be any immediately preceding characters before the hashtag.[a]
    • If making multiple edits to an article, include #NOV24 in only one edit summary.
    • If the editor forgets to put that summary, they may add it retroactively using a dummy edit.
  5. Problematic behaviors are grounds towards disqualification and blocks. Examples are:

Detailed instructions

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Find an article in Category:Articles lacking sources (credits to User:Ajpolino and User:Ipigott). Here are some ways to search:

  • By search term: go to the search bar and type [search term] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
  • By WikiProject: go to Bambot's WikiProject Cleanup Listings, find the project name and click "by cat", then scroll to find the category "Cites no sources".
  • By article topic: use the navbox on Category:Articles lacking sources, or search articletopic:[topic] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
  • By category: use WP:PetScan to find the intersection between "All articles lacking sources" and a chosen category by entering both in "Categories" on separate lines, without the "Category:" part.
  • By popularity: see § Popular articles

Then, find a reliable source.

If at least one reliable source is found, follow these steps:

  1. Cite it inline. Be sure to include all the needed citation data including the title, date, and author/publisher (see WP:CITE). Page numbers and ISBN are strongly recommended wherever present. Place the citation after the punctuation, with no space.
  2. Add {{reflist}} and ==References== if not yet present (see MOS:ORDER).
  3. Remove {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}}. It is recommended to replace it with {{More citations needed}} if large parts of the article are still unreferenced, or add {{cn}} to short chunks of text.
  4. Add an edit summary including #NOV24. Do this only once per article, even if you make multiple edits.

If no reliable source can found with the best of your effort, according to WP:BEFORE, there are a few options:

Progress

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Goal: Bring the backlog down by 10,000 and clear Category:All unreferenced BLPs.

Progress chart
Date Participants Articles
  • Change since
  • previous day
  • Change since
  • beginning
1 November 2024 120 80,645
2 November 2024 128 80,095 Positive decrease 550 Positive decrease 550
3 November 2024 134 79,607 Positive decrease 488 Positive decrease 1038
4 November 2024 141 79,204 Positive decrease 403 Positive decrease 1441
5 November 2024 144 78,815 Positive decrease 389 Positive decrease 1830
6 November 2024 147 78,566 Positive decrease 249 Positive decrease 2079
7 November 2024 148 78,220 Positive decrease 346 Positive decrease 2425
8 November 2024 150 77,906 Positive decrease 314 Positive decrease 2739
9 November 2024 150 77,622 Positive decrease 284 Positive decrease 3023
10 November 2024 150 77,403 Positive decrease 219 Positive decrease 3242
11 November 2024 152 77,224 Positive decrease 179 Positive decrease 3421
12 November 2024 154 76,998 Positive decrease 226 Positive decrease 3647
13 November 2024 154 76,752 Positive decrease 246 Positive decrease 3893
14 November 2024 156 76,695 Positive decrease 57 Positive decrease 3950
15 November 2024 158 76,280 Positive decrease 415 Positive decrease 4365
16 November 2024 158 76,094 Positive decrease 186 Positive decrease 4551
17 November 2024 158 76,103 Negative increase  9 Positive decrease 4542
18 November 2024 158 76,185 Negative increase  82 Positive decrease 4460
19 November 2024 158 75,954 Positive decrease 231 Positive decrease 4691
20 November 2024 160 75,733 Positive decrease 221 Positive decrease 4912
21 November 2024 160 75,397 Positive decrease 336 Positive decrease 5248
22 November 2024 160 75,128 Positive decrease 269 Positive decrease 5517
23 November 2024 160 74,793 Positive decrease 335 Positive decrease 5852
24 November 2024 159 74,602 Positive decrease 191 Positive decrease 6043
25 November 2024 159 74,206 Positive decrease 396 Positive decrease 6439
26 November 2024 162 73,919 Positive decrease 287 Positive decrease 6726
27 November 2024 164 73,732 Positive decrease 187 Positive decrease 6913
28 November 2024 165 73,555 Positive decrease 177 Positive decrease 7090
29 November 2024 165 73,242 Positive decrease 313 Positive decrease 7403

Milestones

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  • 2 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 80,000 for the first time since record-keeping began in August 2009
  • 5 November 2024: December 2008, the oldest category at start of drive, is completed
  • 12 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 77,000
  • 19 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 76,000 (added citations to 5,000 articles)
  • 22 November 2024: our resident megafauna, the category December 2009, shrinks below 10,000 articles for the first time
  • 23 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 75,000
  • 26 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 74,000
  • 27 November 2024: Backlog for January 2009 cleared.

Oldest backlogs

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Cleared backlogs

Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at November 1, 2024 with 190 articles. 0 left.

190 / 190 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from January 2009 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at November 1, 2024 with 320 articles. 0 left.

320 / 320 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2009
Started at November 1, 2024 with 195 articles. 7 left.

188 / 195 (96%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2009
Started at November 1, 2024 with 350 articles. 197 left.

153 / 350 (44%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2009
Started at November 5, 2024 with 232 articles. 149 left.

83 / 232 (36%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from May 2009
Started at November 10, 2024 with 374 articles. 338 left.

36 / 374 (10%)

Leaderboard

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Last updated November 29, 2024, 02:01 UTC

Rank User Tally References Reviews Total
1 JTtheOG Tally 775 130.0 905.0
2 MPGuy2824 Tally 503 4.0 507.0
3 Cielquiparle Tally 325 4.0 329.0
4 Isaidnoway Tally 322 0.0 322.0
5 Apollo468 Tally 283 0.0 283.0
6 Turtlecrown Tally 250 8.0 258.0
7 Headhitter Tally 252 0.0 252.0
8 Suonii180 Tally 219 32.5 251.5
9 Fluorescent Jellyfish Tally 202 46.5 248.5
10 Kazamzam Tally 231 0.0 231.0
11 Nayyn Tally 230 0.0 230.0
12 Smallangryplanet Tally 179 16.0 195.0
13 Sam Sailor Tally 186 6.0 192.0
14 D-Flo27 Tally 150 39.0 189.0
15 ResonantDistortion Tally 167 10.5 177.5
16 SunloungerFrog Tally 158 0.0 158.0
17 Anonymous1261 Tally 117 40.0 157.0
18 Coeusin Tally 126 10.0 136.0
19 Ruud Buitelaar Tally 132 1.5 133.5
20 Wozal Tally 112 15.0 127.0
21 The joy of all things Tally 92 0.0 92.0
22 Mason7512 Tally 89 0.0 89.0
23 Gnisacc Tally 84 0.0 84.0
24 Spiderpig662 Tally 81 2.0 83.0
25 Feralcateater000 Tally 80 0.0 80.0
26 Rosiestep Tally 78 0.0 78.0
27 AlphaBetaGamma Tally 77 0.0 77.0
28 Demt1298 Tally 76 0.0 76.0
29 Riley1012 Tally 63 0.0 63.0
29 Sleepytimecat Tally 63 0.0 63.0
31 Significa liberdade Tally 61 0.0 61.0
32 Lazman321 Tally 57 0.0 57.0
32 WeirdNAnnoyed Tally 54 3.0 57.0
34 MrLinkinPark333 Tally 53 2.5 55.5
35 Toweli Tally 54 0.0 54.0
36 GranCavallo Tally 45 7.0 52.0
37 Jaguarnik Tally 42 8.0 50.0
37 TheZoodles Tally 25 25.0 50.0
39 Engrigg22 Tally 46 0.0 46.0
40 Bearian Tally 45 0.0 45.0
40 Dumelow Tally 45 0.0 45.0
42 Clarityfiend Tally 41 2.5 43.5
43 ARandomName123 Tally 41 0.0 41.0
43 MSLQr Tally 41 0.0 41.0
45 TheBirdsShedTears Tally 40 0.0 40.0
46 SonOfYoutubers Tally 38 0.0 38.0
47 SpookiePuppy Tally 25 9.0 34.0
47 BaduFerreira Tally 34 0.0 34.0
49 SounderBruce Tally 33 0.5 33.5
50 Engineerchange Tally 28 0.0 28.0
50 TamsaVakaras Tally 28 0.0 28.0
50 Mrfoogles Tally 23 5.0 28.0
53 1AmNobody24 Tally 27 0.0 27.0
53 Reconrabbit Tally 27 0.0 27.0
55 Another Believer Tally 26 0.0 26.0
56 Pichpich Tally 25 0.0 25.0
56 Based5290 Tally 25 0.0 25.0
56 Donner60 Tally 25 0.0 25.0
59 GrabUp Tally 23 0.0 23.0
59 Silver seren Tally 23 0.0 23.0
59 Marcus Markup Tally 23 0.0 23.0
62 Gazamp Tally 22 0.0 22.0
62 Lollipoplollipoplollipop Tally 20 2.0 22.0
64 Ewhite31 Tally 19 0.0 19.0
65 Reidgreg Tally 17 0.0 17.0
65 TrademarkedTWOrantula Tally 17 0.0 17.0
67 Jengod Tally 15 0.0 15.0
67 Semmendinger Tally 15 0.0 15.0
69 TheNuggeteer Tally 12 2.5 14.5
70 Moriwen Tally 14 0.0 14.0
70 GeorgeSonOfJohn Tally 14 0.0 14.0
70 Liandrei Tally 14 0.0 14.0
73 Conyo14 Tally 12 0.0 12.0
74 R0paire-wiki Tally 11 0.0 11.0
74 Voorts Tally 11 0.0 11.0
74 Ayji Tally 11 0.0 11.0
74 Darcyisverycute Tally 11 0.0 11.0
78 Joe Roe Tally 10 0.0 10.0
78 Goldsztajn Tally 10 0.0 10.0
78 Hog Farm Tally 10 0.0 10.0
81 Bo-3903 Tally 9 0.0 9.0
82 Ponyo Tally 8 0.0 8.0
82 Dr vulpes Tally 8 0.0 8.0
82 Cyanochic Tally 8 0.0 8.0
82 Nnev66 Tally 8 0.0 8.0
82 CanonNi Tally 8 0.0 8.0
87 Kline Tally 6 0.0 6.0
87 Dan Leonard Tally 6 0.0 6.0
87 Tea and Seed Cake Tally 6 0.0 6.0
90 Hako9 Tally 0 5.5 5.5
91 Kmccook Tally 5 0.0 5.0
91 Nil Nandy Tally 5 0.0 5.0
91 ClaudineChionh Tally 5 0.0 5.0
91 Jähmefyysikko Tally 5 0.0 5.0
91 ThermodynamicLawyer Tally 5 0.0 5.0
96 Sennecaster Tally 2 2.5 4.5
97 Voidxor Tally 4 0.0 4.0
97 Miminity Tally 4 0.0 4.0
97 Contrawwftw Tally 4 0.0 4.0
97 Bpuddin Tally 4 0.0 4.0
101 Garsh2 Tally 3 0.0 3.0
101 DreamRimmer Tally 2 1.0 3.0
101 Tails Wx Tally 3 0.0 3.0
101 Cremastra Tally 3 0.0 3.0
101 HKRailEnthusiast Tally 3 0.0 3.0
101 TyphoonAmpil Tally 2 1.0 3.0
101 Hhmontanac Tally 3 0.0 3.0
101 AddWittyNameHere Tally 3 0.0 3.0
109 DandelionAndBurdock Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Rsrikanth05 Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Flounder fillet Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Tvfunhouse Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Knitsey Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Wikibear47 Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Mir Novov Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Jlwoodwa Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Calmkelp Tally 2 0.0 2.0
109 Pothos144 Tally 2 0.0 2.0
119 SL93 Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Clovermoss Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 GraziePrego Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Tavantius Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Myceteae Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 That Tired Tarantula Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Rusty Cat Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Tooncool64 Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Postmud Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Syskerr91 Tally 1 0.0 1.0
119 Richard Nevell Tally 1 0.0 1.0
- EmilySarah99 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- MinTrouble Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Ajay Platinum Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Theki Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- CFA Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- NightWolf1223 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Memer15151 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- DoubleGrazing Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Meanderingbartender Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Jon Kolbert Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Peter Flass Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- AlexandraAVX Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Yue Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Alexeyevitch Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- -αβοοδ Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Pickersgill-Cunliffe Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Ratekreel Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- ThadeusOfNazereth Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- VastV0idInSpace0 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- EF5 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Yoblyblob Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Kingsmasher678 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Proplayer919 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Missalex420 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Esprit15d Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Heureuxl Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Endrabcwizart Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- MimirIsSmart Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- BeanieFan11 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Transgenderoriole Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Jannatulbaqi Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- AirshipJungleman29 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- LemonJuiceIsSour Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Patar knight Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Noxoug1 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Otr500 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
Total 7253 442.0 7695.0

Participants

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Reviews

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All participants with experience in citing sources are encouraged to perform reviews. Reviewers will be awarded 0.5 points for each review. A tool is available to locate unreviewed submissions and simplify wikitext formatting.

Tips

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Determining what sources are usable

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Even if we are just citing one source for an article, that source must be chosen carefully. That source needs to:

This is a lot to take in. And worse, sometimes you won't be able to find a source that meets these criteria! It can be very hard to determine whether you should go forward to cite the article or ask for its deletion, even for experienced WikiGnomers, and sometimes you have to follow through with your gut feelings.

Some suitable sources may be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Resources or Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

Examples of common not suitable sources include:

Some tricks

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Searching for sources (detailed guide at Wikipedia:Advanced source searching)

  • The {{Unreferenced}} template placed at the top of unreferenced pages contains many search links pre-filled with the article topic (and configured to exclude other Wikipedia articles).
  • On Google and some other search engines:
    • Use "" (double quotes) to search for the term exactly. This means that "pinnochio" should only show pages containing "pinnochio", not pinocchio (but note that sometimes quotes are disregarded and the wrong term is shown anyway).
    • Use - (dash) to exclude pages containing unwanted terms, e.g. -wikipedia.
  • Some articles, especially for more general topics, might have sources available with slightly different wording, e.g. "basketweaving" vs "basket weaving", "basket weaver", etc.
  • Search millions of old and new books at Google Books and Archive.org. For Archive.org, go to https://archive.org/search, click the search bar, then click the "search text contents" radio button to search inside over 10 million books.
  • Access to some pay-walled content, including academic journals, Newspapers.com and ProQuest, is provided to editors via The Wikipedia Library.
  • Check for sources in related articles on Wikipedia but do not simply copy the reference. Only after you've checked that the source is reliable and does indeed verify the text, you may use the citation.

Reading and parsing sources

  • Use the text searching feature to locate what you are looking for faster, such as Ctrl+F on Windows or ⌘ Cmd+F on macOS.
  • Translation for reading:
    • You can use machine translation, either at a website or as built in to your web browser. However, these translations may be rough and should not be used indiscriminately in Wikipedia.
    • To translate text that cannot be copied, for example on Google Books, you can take a screenshot of a passage and upload the image to Google Translate.

Processing articles

  • While you're there, you could expand the article with new information from your reliable sources, or clean up or tag other problems you find.
  • Twinkle might be helpful for cleaning up article banners and nominating articles for deletion
  • If you are familiar with AWB/JWB, you can use it to quickly add a "References" section and {{reflist}} template.
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The articles below are some of the more popular pages on Wikipedia and thus might be easier to find sources for. They are queried from pageviews analysis at Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS). Please remove entries once references have been added. This section will be updated regularly.

28 November - some more general popular articles today. These are taken from the set of articles that were first noted in 2011 as being unreferenced.

Unreferenced biographies

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25 November 2024 - these are pretty much the last 19 16 12 11 8 4 3 2(!) 1(!!) 0(!!) unreferenced BLPs left to deal with.

Well, we did it! All BLPs that aren't currently undergoing a deletion discussion process of some sort have now been dealt with. It's worth keeping an eye out for any new ones that pop up though. Here are two handy WP:PetScan links:

26 November: hockey players, plus a few others, now dealt with, and we're back to zero!

Badges

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b See phab:T270992 and phab:T262234. Ex. "#NOV24", and "add a ref #NOV24" are fine, but "add a ref#NOV24" and [[WP:NOV24|#NOV24]] are not.