Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/November 2025

Where to get help

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, Cielquiparle, ARandomName123, and SunloungerFrog. For technical issues, contact DreamRimmer, who is providing technical support for this drive.

Rules

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 #NOV25 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 #NOV25 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:
   • Spamming articles to AfD/PROD/blank and redirect
   • Mass-removal of {{Unreferenced}}
   • Adding fake references and content
   • Being disruptive by being uncivil, wikilawyering, etc.

Detailed instructions

Remember to tag your edit summary with #NOV25, both to advertise the event and tally the points later using m:Hashtags

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
• By category or WikiProject, and popularity: For tips on how to use Petscan to filter by category or WikiProject (with handy examples and pre-canned queries) – and even organize the output by popularity (or other criteria), please check out this user-friendly guide.

Then, find a reliable source.

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

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 #NOV25. 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:

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

Progress

Update this page

Goal: Add citations to at least 6,000 articles. Bring the backlog down to below 42,000 if possible.

More information Date, Participants ...

Progress Chart

Date	Participants	Articles	Change since previous day	Change since beginning
1 November 2025	140	47,658	—	—
2 November 2025	146	47,073	585	585
3 November 2025	149	46,780	293	878
4 November 2025	152	46,485	295	1173
5 November 2025	154	46,129	356	1529
6 November 2025	156	45,906	223	1752
7 November 2025	157	45,658	248	2000
8 November 2025	157	45,417	241	2241
9 November 2025	159	45,192	225	2466
10 November 2025	159	44,959	233	2699
11 November 2025	159	44,718	241	2940
12 November 2025	160	44,387	331	3271
13 November 2025	160	44,191	196	3467
14 November 2025	160	43,957	234	3701
15 November 2025	161	43,686	271	3972
16 November 2025	162	43,514	172	4144
17 November 2025	162	43,344	170	4314
18 November 2025	164	43,068	276	4590
19 November 2025	164	42,834	234	4824
20 November 2025	164	42,701	133	4957
21 November 2025	164	42,457	244	5201
22 November 2025	165	42,244	213	5414
23 November 2025	165	42,080	164	5578
24 November 2025	165	41,826	254	5832
25 November 2025	165	41,593	233	6065
26 November 2025	165	41,443	150	6215
27 November 2025	166	41,256	187	6402
28 November 2025	166	41,025	231	6633
29 November 2025	167	40,780	245	6878
30 November 2025	167	40,614	166	7044
1 December 2025	168	40,453	161	7205
2 December 2025	168	40,259	194	7399

Close

Leaderboard

Last updated December 23, 2025, 20:06 UTC

Participants

Reviews

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

Popular articles

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

Unreferenced biographies

There are currently no unreferenced biographies of living people that have not been dealt with. There remain a few that are subject to a deletion process: see Category:All unreferenced BLPs.

Badges

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  500 points
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  750 points
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  Top 3 of the drive
• 
  Top 2 of the drive
• 
  Top 1 of the drive

Notes