The following event is now closed.Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made onWikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles.

Welcome to theWikiProject Unreferenced Articles November 2024 backlog drive! At the start of the drive, there were80,645 articles tagged as entirely without references on Wikipedia. At the end of the drive, there were72,134, a net decrease of8,511 articles. In addition,Category:All unreferenced BLPs was completely cleared temporarily!

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 currentlytagged as unreferenced.
2. Add at least oneinline citation of areliable 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. Theremust 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 strictlyprohibited.

The referencing portion of the drive ran 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 extendeduntil December 7, 23:59 UTC to allow time for additional reviews.

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

If you have questions or concerns about the drive, please use thebacklog drive talk page or contact the organizers,Kazamzam,Cielquiparle andARandomName123. For technical issues, contactDreamRimmer, who is providing technical support for this drive.

1. 1 point for adding at least oneinline citation from areliable 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 seeWP: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 orblank and redirect. (Seethis discussion)
4. All citing contributions without#NOV24 in theedit summarywillnot be counted. Theremust 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 adummy edit.
5. Problematic behaviors are grounds towards disqualification andblocks. Examples are:
   • Spamming articles to AfD/PROD/blank and redirect
   • Mass-removal of{{Unreferenced}}
   • Adding fake references and content
   • Being disruptive by being uncivil, wikilawyering, etc.

Remember to tag your edit summary with#NOV24, both to advertise the event and tally the points later usingm:Hashtags

Find an article inCategory:Articles lacking sources(credits toUser:Ajpolino andUser:Ipigott). Here are some ways to search:

• Bysearch term: go to thesearch bar and type[search term] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
• ByWikiProject: go toBambot's WikiProject Cleanup Listings, find the project name and click "by cat", then scroll to find the category "Cites no sources".
• Byarticle topic: use the navbox onCategory:Articles lacking sources, or searcharticletopic:[topic] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
• Bycategory: useWP: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.
• Bypopularity: see§ Popular articles

Then, find a reliable source.

• Familiarize yourself withreliable sources on Wikipedia.
• For tips, see§ Some tricks and§ Determining what sources are usable.

Ifat 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 (seeWP:CITE). Page numbers andISBN are strongly recommended wherever present. Place the citationafter the punctuation, with no space.
2. Add{{reflist}} and ==References== if not yet present (seeMOS: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 thisonly once per article, even if you make multiple edits.

Ifno reliable source can found with the best of your effort, according toWP:BEFORE, there are a few options:

• PROD the article if it is obvious that the article should be deleted.
• AFD the article if it isnot obvious that the article should be deleted.
• Merge discussion andredirect the article if the article has some useful content but it is not notable.
• Make a new thread atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles if you are unsure.

Update this page

Goal: Bring the backlog down by 10,000 and clearCategory: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	550	550
3 November 2024	134	79,607	488	1038
4 November 2024	141	79,204	403	1441
5 November 2024	144	78,815	389	1830
6 November 2024	147	78,566	249	2079
7 November 2024	148	78,220	346	2425
8 November 2024	150	77,906	314	2739
9 November 2024	150	77,622	284	3023
10 November 2024	150	77,403	219	3242
11 November 2024	152	77,224	179	3421
12 November 2024	154	76,998	226	3647
13 November 2024	154	76,752	246	3893
14 November 2024	156	76,695	57	3950
15 November 2024	158	76,280	415	4365
16 November 2024	158	76,094	186	4551
17 November 2024	158	76,103	9	4542
18 November 2024	158	76,185	82	4460
19 November 2024	158	75,954	231	4691
20 November 2024	160	75,733	221	4912
21 November 2024	160	75,397	336	5248
22 November 2024	160	75,128	269	5517
23 November 2024	160	74,793	335	5852
24 November 2024	159	74,602	191	6043
25 November 2024	159	74,206	396	6439
26 November 2024	162	73,919	287	6726
27 November 2024	164	73,732	187	6913
28 November 2024	165	73,555	177	7090
29 November 2024	165	73,242	313	7403
30 November 2024	165	72,834	408	7811
1 December 2024	166	72,485	349	8160
2 December 2024	166	72,134	351	8511

• 2 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 80,000 for the first time sincerecord-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 categoryDecember 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
• 29 November 2024: total number of unreferenced articles below 73,000

Last updated December 09, 2024, 01:21 UTC

All participants with experience in citing sources are encouraged to perform reviews. Reviewers will be awarded0.5 points for each review.A tool is available to locate unreviewed submissions and simplify wikitext formatting.

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

• verify information in the article
• bereliable enough to be trusted

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 atWikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Resources orWikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

Examples of commonnot suitable sources include:

• Tabloids –Daily Mail,listicles atHindustan Times, etc.
• Blogs –Wordpress,Blogger, personal websites
• Wikipedia mirrors, substantially duplicating existing content
• Books not under editorial control, print-on-demand, or self-published from groups such as Lulu.com, AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, Xlibris, PediaPress, etc. (tip: search Wikipedia for the publisher's name)
• Websites made up ofuser-generated content such asIMDb,Goodreads andFandom

Searching for sources (detailed guide atWikipedia: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", notpinocchio (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 tohttps://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 viaThe Wikipedia Library.
• Check for sources in related articles on Wikipedia butdo 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 asCtrl+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 withAWB/JWB, you can use it to quickly add a "References" section and{{reflist}} template.

The articles below are some of the more popular pages on Wikipedia and thus might be easier to find sources for. They are queried frompageviews analysis at Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS). Please remove entries once references have been added. This section will be updated regularly.

30 November - Probably the final refresh. These are very popular (60+ hits a day) articles that are still not referenced.

25 November 2024 - these are pretty much thelast191612118432(!)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 handyWP:PetScan links:

• petscan:29947650 - All unreferenced BLPs
• petscan:29914029 - All unreferenced BLPs, less those undergoingWP:DELETE of some sort.

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

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