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With the drive concluded, the drive page has been archived.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)