Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles

74,999! Boleyn (talk) 15:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

73,996! Boleyn (talk) 18:30, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

70,085! Catfurball (talk) 19:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

A tasteful 69,589! Kazamzam (talk) 20:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

68,992! Kazamzam (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

67,924! Turtlecrown (talk) 08:50, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

67,065 -- approaching 67,000 Mrfoogles (talk) 22:04, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

66,994! Mrfoogles (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

65,993! Turtlecrown (talk) 23:28, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

64,921! Cielquiparle (talk) 13:35, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

63,942! Cielquiparle (talk) 18:23, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

62,987! SunloungerFrog (talk) 04:50, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

61,903! Someonefighter (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

60,929! Silverseren^C 19:35, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

59,992! Silverseren^C 02:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

59,090! TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 20:09, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

58,814! Catfurball (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

57,954! Catfurball (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

56,795! Catfurball (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

55,456! Catfurball (talk) 16:58, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

54,932! Catfurball (talk) 15:24, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

53,557! Catfurball (talk) 20:45, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

52,896! Catfurball (talk) 15:40, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

51,967! Catfurball (talk) 21:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

50,983! Catfurball (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

49,997 - well done everyone! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:44, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

48,979! Keep going. Cielquiparle (talk) 09:57, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

47,956! Cielquiparle (talk) 18:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

46,981! Cielquiparle (talk) 04:39, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

46,367! Boleyn (talk) 13:50, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

47,036! The backlog has increased. Catfurball (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

47,423! The number of unreferenced articles are going way up. Catfurball (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

They actually aren't. We should probably change how we count these, Catfurball, now that we know about the "probably unreferenced" group that is untagged. If you look at the new chart on the main page, you can see from a month ago that while the unreferenced amount has gone up by 1,000, the probably unreferenced group has gone down by 5,000. So massive progress is still being made, it's just that some of the latter are being tagged and thus being added into the former, even while the total amount is going down a whole bunch. Silverseren^C 21:29, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

44,940! Cielquiparle (talk) 12:47, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

43,994! Cielquiparle (talk) 12:42, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

42,802! Catfurball (talk) 20:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

41,651! Cielquiparle (talk) 03:32, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

40,694! Catfurball (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

40,332! It's so close to going under 40k. It's a year and a week ago since I started this thread, to celebrate it going under 75k! 35k less in a year is amazing. Boleyn (talk) 10:15, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

39,970! Catfurball (talk) 00:29, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

38,999! Catfurball (talk) 17:07, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

37,283! Catfurball (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

35,328! Catfurball (talk) 16:27, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

34,554! Catfurball (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I would like to propose that under Progress, we include three numbers: 1) the total number of articles tagged as unreferenced (including BLPs and lists) as we do now; 2) the total number of articles that are "probably" unreferenced (including lists); and 3) the total of those two numbers. By tracking all 3 instead of just 1, it eases some of the anxiety around the number in category 1 going up, while providing an overall view of actual progress. @SunloungerFrog @ARandomName123 Cielquiparle (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Silverseren^C 17:08, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Because really the grand total should only go down now provided we keep it refreshed, and I think ARandomName123's refreshing script does a great job in that regard. Certainly the graph's trajectory is very encouraging. I will have a think about automatically gathering those numbers. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good to me. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:22, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

71,984! Cielquiparle (talk) 04:57, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

71,214! Cielquiparle (talk) 05:13, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

70,752! Cielquiparle (talk) 14:14, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

70,342! Cielquiparle (talk) 10:30, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

69,925! Cielquiparle (talk) 05:31, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

68,970! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 00:35, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

67,766! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:07, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

66,666! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 04:08, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

65,802! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:28, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

64,795! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 00:12, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

63,977! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:41, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Below are the Top 20 finishers in the November 2025 backlog drive, factoring in adjustments. Congratulations and thanks again to all who participated in adding citations to Unreferenced articles.

Looking at the very top of the table:

• @JTtheOG retains the title as Unreferenced articles backlog drive champion for the fourth backlog drive in a row with 1093 points. @The joy of all things came in second overall with 635.
• Third place finisher @Chorchapu was also the top Reviewer. The second most prolific reviewer was @Ivebeenhacked.
• @AwerDiWeGo who finished 5th and @Dumelow in 6th place actually tied in terms of the number of articles they added citations to (239).

In terms of next steps: @DreamRimmer, would you be able to do the honors in awarding barnstars? Cielquiparle (talk) 04:50, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! Bearian (talk) 04:51, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Had a great time contributing to this event. Appreciate it. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 04:55, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I take this opportunity (...ehem) I take this oportunity (...ehem, ehem) to thank Dumelow for his hard and thankless (ehem) work on the other November drive. He deserves my 5th place and maybe also Cielquiparle's 4th pl... ("stop, you're not funny!", someone shouts from the audience). AwerDiWeGo (talk) 10:49, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I was really pleased with how the MILHIST one went and was glad to see some good crossover in participation between the two projects. Excellent work all! - Dumelow (talk) 21:11, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I learned sooooo much from this drive (my apologies to anyone who had to put up with me) and I definitely want to participate in the next one! Rob Rosenberger (talk) 13:59, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

thank you! Until next time! Coldcoldwind (talk) 14:09, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

When is the next... Davidindia (talk) 15:09, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

March 2026. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 15:25, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! I enjoyed it. See you at the next drive. — Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Starting a list of false positives from the "Probably unreferenced" set:

• 1600s_(decade) <- has refs though could use more
• 1700s_(decade), 1000s (decade)
• 2006_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(CAF)
• 1750s, 1760s
• 2024 Indian general election in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Pinging @ARandomName123 Cielquiparle (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Thanks for listing those. Dealt with the decade articles by adding {{Events by year for decade}} to the filter. The 2024 Indian election article is now filtered through #section-h, and the FIFA one is filtered through {{2006 FIFA World Cup qualification - CAF Group 1}} (this isn't the ideal solution but it seems each one has a different template). ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 03:55, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @ARandomName123! Listing a couple more:

• Cabinet of Libya
• Here is a new variation of "unreferenced" to filter out: "unrf" (!)
• Canadian federal election results on Vancouver Island <- there seem to be multiple articles like this

Cielquiparle (talk) 05:32, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, {{excerpt}} added for Libya, unrf added (never seen that before!), and added {{2015 Canadian federal election/ ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 05:58, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

And more:

• Canada at the FIFA Women's World Cup
• ISO 639:c

Cielquiparle (talk) 12:48, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Added {{2003 FIFA Women's World Cup group tables}} for the first (probably only works for this specific article, as there's many templates on that page). Added {{ISO 639-3 footer}} for the ISO page. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:25, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 @SunloungerFrog How did we end up *adding* 145 "probably unreferenced" articles to unref8? Cielquiparle (talk) 11:25, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle, in an effort to keep abreast of any new "probably unreferenced" articles - for example, if an editor goes on a spree removing unreliable sources from articles but subsequently fails to tag the articles if they happen to end up unreferenced - @ARandomName123's bot now scans all articles that were last edited by a non-bot the day before yesterday, in addition to the existing task of refreshing those already in the "probably unreferenced" blob. We thought that this gradual approach was better than an infrequent scan across all mainspace articles, which would almost certainly have the undesirable effect of a big disheartening spike in "probably unreferenced" articles. The conversation ARandomName123 and I had about this is here: User talk:ARandomName123 § URA scripts, continuously check for probably unref articles. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 11:55, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

(And actually it was only 24 additional articles as you can see from the diff - the other 121 articles were already in the "probably unreferenced" blob). Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 11:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks @SunloungerFrog for the update and link. Cielquiparle (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

More false positives:

• Manshiyet Zabda
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Alabama
• National Register of Historic Places listings in New Mexico
• Electoral history of Mark Carney

Cielquiparle (talk) 15:11, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Added {{NRHP date for lists}} for the two NRHP ones, added {{2025 Canadian federal election/Nepean}} for Carney, and added {{Israel populations}} for Manshiyet Zadba. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:35, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

More false positives:

• Secure Hash Algorithms
• Tufino

Cielquiparle (talk) 05:44, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Added {{Comparison of SHA functions}}. Added {{Infobox Italian comune}}. I'm not too sure about the last one, since it doesn't directly link to the source, and it seems to be the same URL regardless of what place it is. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 05:56, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Also added {{NRHP row}} and {{NRHP header}} for the NRHP ones. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:00, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Another false positive:

• On Air (Queen album)
• Detroit Mercy Titans track and field

Cielquiparle (talk) 10:57, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Added {{albumchart}} for On Air. Added {{Infobox college track and field team}} as well, though I'm not sure if there's any false negatives ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 05:06, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 When you get a chance, could we filter out Main Page (sitting at unref6)? Cielquiparle (talk) 19:42, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Ah yea that shouldn't be there. Added to the filter. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:24, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

False positive:

• Jetten cabinet

Cielquiparle (talk) 04:59, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Added {{Jetten cabinet table}}. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 08:39, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

New year, new marathon. In January, our hero was @Bearian who logged 434 points as the undisputed leader...followed by @JoeNMLC, @4meter4, and @Silver seren with 177, 163, and 102 points each.

Hats off to all who have been plugging away, adding citations, correcting tags, and helping newer editors understand the importance of reliable sources. There are still quite a few popular articles (and lists) lacking sources – and more sources available than ever in the Wikipedia Library – so we have our work cut out for us.

And if you're new to this WikiProject and want to get involved, you can track our collective progress on the 2026 marathon leaderboard. Your stats should show up once you have added citations to at least 5 articles and removed the {{Unreferenced}} tag.

More information Rank, User ...

Rank	User	Total articles in Jan 2026
1	Bearian	434
2	JoeNMLC	177
3	4meter4	163
4	Silver seren	102
5	Cakelot1	52
6	SunloungerFrog	49
7	Cielquiparle	38
8	Boleyn	36
9	Coldupnorth	30
10	Earl Andrew	28

Close

Happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 19:41, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. Almost 300 of those were mistagged, and probably 109 were redirects, but I did source 24 articles sources, which is less than one per day. Bearian (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

It all counts and is appreciated. Reviewing articles can take a long time too but seems increasingly important. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009 is still large. I remember when it was about 100 times that size, but it's still an unusually large category.

I wonder whether we could get it broken down into lists of articles per WikiProject, and then send personalized messages to the bigger groups to ask for their help? For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Football has 43 unsourced articles left from that month. That's feels like a manageable number for a strong group. Maybe if we gave them a curated list, they would get some of these done. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:22, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

I think enlisting the help of WikiProjects is always worth a try, and sometimes it bears fruit. I personally tend to do that kind of personalised message when we're holding a backlog drive (e.g. here or here). I wonder whether clearing the Dec 2009 category - only just over 1000 articles now - could be a particular goal for the March 2026 backlog drive? Then we could do some prep work petscanning chunks of articles for WikiProjects in advance, so that we can message all the pertinent WikiProjects on 1 March. @WhatamIdoing do you have a sense of which ones are larger / more active, i.e. that are worth targeting? Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:29, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes is potentially useful.

Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers is less directly useful. It tells you how many watchlists the page is on, but it doesn't tell you how many of those accounts are inactive or just not using the watchlist. But looking through that list, with ?action=info it's possible to find groups that had more than n watchlisting editors actually check the talk project page during the last month. For example, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics each had 50+ watchlisting editors look at that page during the last month. It is probably possible to generate a useful list through some automated process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

IMO any subdivision should retain the existing category with the same name for consistency with the other month categories. A division similar to Category:All articles lacking sources vs Category:Articles lacking sources would make sense.  novov talk edits 12:18, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

@Mir Novov, the intent is not to split the category as such - it will still be Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009. The proposal is that we extract themed subsets of articles from that category using PetScan and publicise them on the relevant WikiProject talk page to get their help finding sources. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:29, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

I propose that all indexes beginning with "Index of..." should be automatically excluded from the "Probably unreferenced list" (currently at unref3). An example is Index of software engineering articles. I think this is relatively clear cut for our purposes. (How this category of indexes as a whole should be treated within Wikipedia is a separate question which can be dealt with elsewhere.)

Less clear cut is what to do about articles that are currently functioning as set index pages or disambiguation pages. The simple ones seem straightforward: no references required. It's when they start to include factual claims and contextual information that it seems like references would be preferred. (This is all triggered by History of the Jews in the United Kingdom, which I would argue is essentially a set index page and shouldn't require references.) @Bearian @ARandomName123 @SunloungerFrog Cielquiparle (talk) 06:54, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree that we should exclude

• Articles whose titles begin with "Index of" (286 articles, petscan:42738978)

and further propose that we should exclude

• Articles that are in Category:Wikipedia indexes (209 articles, petscan:42738709)

That will reduce the "probably unreferenced" blob by a total of 296 articles - there is obviously a lot of overlap between those two sets of query results, but there are some articles whose titles begin with "List of" that are in the Wikipedia indexes category that I think we could safely remove too. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:33, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Ok. Bearian (talk) 11:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

To slightly complicate this, looking at the list of articles whose titles begin with "Index of", some of them I would class as lists not indexes (e.g. Index of Windows games (0–9)). I therefore think removals should go of the category not the names. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 11:55, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Interesting. What do you think about the "List of" pages in Category:Articles lacking sources from August 2023? Bearian (talk) 12:44, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

In what regard? If your asking if I think any of these look like indexes, no I think all of those all look like standalone or navigational lists. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 14:51, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cakelot1, I'm curious, what is the distinction between an index and a navigational list? Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 15:21, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

My understanding here (per WP:INDEXES and MOS:LISTTYPES) was that an index was an alphabetic list of articles surrounding a general topic (like an alphabetized version of an WP:OUTLINE) whereas what I'm (probably imprecisely) calling a navlist here is a restricted grouping of notable articles based on a selection criteria (the difference between Index of Buddhism-related articles and List of Buddhists, List of Buddhist temples in the United States, etc.). Perhaps, I'm mistaken, but I think all of the "list of" articles in Aug 23 could (and imo should) be referenced. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 15:46, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cakelot1: that was my first thought--what about the misnamed articles. Although I agree that true list articles do not require sources. Rublamb (talk) 16:48, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

On the technical side of things, the easiest way to do this would be to add a filter for {{Index footer}}, which this tool currently shows has 321 transclusions, though the title check for "Index of" would also work. Category checking would be a bit more complicated to set up, but I guess it could be doable. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:23, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

The filter for the index footer sounds good. Categories keep changing all the time anyway. (Just saw Index of Angami-related articles turned up at unref8.) Cielquiparle (talk) 06:21, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

In which case I suggest we go with the filter for the footer combined with the title check for "Index of". Whatever is most straightforward to implement. And I note that putting thoughtful filters in place to manage the "probably unreferenced" blob does not preclude editors looking at a list article and thinking "actually, this needs some sourcing" and putting {{unreferenced}} on it, whereupon we will deal with it in the usual way. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:27, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm curious about which of the List of... articles in Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2023 might have their tags removed? Bearian (talk) 23:17, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Index footer template and titles starting with "Index of" have now been added to the filter (see index cull at unref8). ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:54, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 Can we still do the next backlog drive in March (pre-booked in the central calendar) or should we wait until August? Is there a tool that we can use to replace the hashtag tool? Cielquiparle (talk) 02:56, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Well prior to the hashtag tool we used the edit summary search tool, which I suppose we could use again. We did run into an issue where it had a 500 article limit, but we got around it somehow (I'll have to look through the archives). I doubt the hashtag issue will be fixed any time soon

Both drive timings are fine by me. If we go ahead with the March drive, I'll try and get the contribution search tool finished next week. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 07:05, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. @SunloungerFrog Are you in for March? Cielquiparle (talk) 07:48, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I think March will be OK for me, so let's do it. I think we should keep using #MAR26 in the edit summary, and I think that there are three ways of getting the stats:

• using the hashtag tool, imperfect as it may be
• using the edit summary search tool as @ARandomName123 suggests above
• using this Quarry query courtesy of @The wub here

I don't know which is easiest to integrate into the scoring / updating code, but I am happy to help here if I can! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:33, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 FYI – Here is the Collaborative contributions tool that @The wub had mentioned during the November drive. Having only skimmed I'm not sure if it's ready / suits our purposes but maybe it's another option for now or in the future. Cielquiparle (talk) 08:22, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I think that the collaborative contributions tool looks interesting, but we would need to do a little testing / dummy run first so that we know how to document its use in the instructions, and get everyone in the project familiar with it. Maybe that is something to tentatively plan for May or June, before #AUG26? Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:35, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Hello WikiProject URA fans: You're not imagining things. The sizzle in the air is palpable.

Roll up your sleeves and register now for the March 2026 Unreferenced article backlog drive! (We currently have 5 editors signed up.)

Next steps for WP:MAR26 organizers:

• The newsletter draft has been partially updated here. It still needs input from @ARandomName123 in case we need to adjust given the tool change. But once that is done, @DreamRimmer, would you be able to assist with newsletter distribution?
• I will submit the Watchlist notice message for publication next week.
• @SunloungerFrog Thanks for kicking off our #SquadGoals. Any other tasks we need to take care of now?
• Also pinging @Bunnypranav who kindly distributed barnstars in November, and @Ivebeenhacked who offered to help in future backlog drives.

Get ready to make a massive dent in the "total backlog" in March...but if you have time in February there is lots of room to climb the 2026 marathon-rules leaderboard...which counts every instance of unreferenced tags being removed. Thanks and happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 06:53, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Happy to help with the barnstars again. @Cielquiparle please ping me when this is required. :) ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 07:50, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Bunnypranav Cielquiparle (talk) 09:37, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Community bulletin board also updated now (little bit late, but I did it in conjunction with removing the GAN drive notice). -- Reconrabbit 16:55, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

@SunloungerFrog @WhatamIdoing Liking the idea of reaching out to the individual WikiProjects with their relevant list of precanned Petscan queries/lists of subject-specific unreferenced articles. What is the best way to coordinate that? Is it worth running new Petscan queries first to refresh them (as they seem to take a very long time to generate using their old PSIDs)? I am happy to help with outreach as well so just let me know if are dividing and conquering by subject. Speaking of which, re: Military history – @Dumelow: Will we be seeing you at the March 2026 backlog drive? Cielquiparle (talk) 09:46, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I was really pleased by how many MILHIST participants we got at our November drive which reduced the backlog by about 600 articles as well as making other improvements to MILHIST articles. I'm likely to be quite busy in March so won't be able to host a separate drive but happy to publicise a link to your drive on the MILHIST talk page and will try to chip in where I can. The Petscan listing for MILHIST has just less than 600 articles so it is not impossible that it could be cleared entirely - Dumelow (talk) 07:39, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Cielquiparle, I think that table is good, but there are only a dozen WikiProjects listed. Could the list be expanded using the mw:ORES/Articletopic? That would give us about 60 topics, and it might be possible to match most of them to a WikiProject (or several).

That would also open up the possibility of adding a third column using Special:Search. For example, the medicine category has 350 by the category search method, just 2 by the WikiProject technique, and 151 according to the ORES search approach. Since the subject of medicine and health is split across many WikiProjects, many of these "belong" to other groups (e.g., WikiProject Anatomy), and some of them are just wrong/misclassified (e.g., Slant (handwriting)), but it would give us a good starting point, and if we can find a central group for each of these, then we'd cover most of the articles.

I'm impressed by Dumelow's report of MILHIST getting 600 articles sourced in one month. Even 100 is very difficult for most groups. Most groups will find long lists overwhelming. Looking at the first three in the Petscan table, I see 1500, a timeout message, and 2500 articles in the lists. This is just too much. (The one that timed out shows just 26 according to Bambots.) I think it more realistic to provide a list of, say, 50 articles at a time. Or even 20.

Another idea: Could we send a short list to the Wikipedia Signpost every two weeks, with a list that's either the oldest or the highest traffic ones? See Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance/high traffic pages report, which Andrew Gray set up for the WP:ATODAY mess. I'm imagining something that looks at unref'd articles (older than a couple of months) and figures out which have the highest page views. If The Signpost runs a short list, then maybe its readers would want to clear the list. (Pinging @Smallbones) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I think that particular approach would struggle here (since I hope that few of our highest traffic pages are also unreffed) but I could certainly run a manual report for "all unreffed articles, selecting the ## with highest views last month". If that sounds useful let me know & I'll run off a test for you. Andrew Gray (talk) 06:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would work. But let's wait and see if anyone else thinks it's a good idea first. We have lots of ideas and can't do them all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

So, we already do this during backlog drives. See the popular articles section on the drive page. I update this (manually) reasonably regularly, using PetScan → Massviews → the top fifty most popular pages. I am certainly up for including this in the Signpost - can't do any harm, and it might spread the word. Are we too late for the next Signpost (which I think is 3 March)? If not then I am happy to collaborate on a short story with a list of 50 most popular articles or 50 oldest articles for Signpost readers to have a go at. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:16, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

If anyone (@Cielquiparle, @ARandomName123, @WhatamIdoing) would like to help out with writing something for the Signpost (turns out next edition is 8 March), here is my working draft. I am not super at deathless prose, so any comments or additions are heartily welcome. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:00, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Could the list be expanded using the mw:ORES/Articletopic Sure I can have a look at that. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:18, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, instructions for using predicted articletopic or predicted articlecountry are now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Petscan tips § Filtering by predicted topic or country, and I have added an extra column to the tables of precanned queries that I am slowly adding to. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:55, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Actually I have taken a different tack and generated the countries table programmatically, so that should be as complete as it can be now. If people could take a look and let me know of any mistakes, and I can tweak. I will then do something similar for the topics table. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 14:13, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for this! I'll quickly note at this point that I had already posted a notice at WikiProject Switzerland independently of this yesterday, so you can skip that one or just amend it when going through your list :) I apologize for the little deviation from consistency and coordination! YuniToumei (talk) 15:27, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I will then do something similar for the topics table - now done, see the new and improved topics table. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:05, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I think it more realistic to provide a list of, say, 50 articles at a time. Or even 20. I think that the approach for WP:MAR26 should be to focus on asking WikiProjects to help deal with the remnants of the December 2009 blob, which should limit the number of articles in each themed list a bit. I agree that it is better to give a smaller list, maybe with a petscan link that would return a more comprehensive set of results, to make it look manageable. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Just to note that I've signposted this drive over at MILHIST. It would be a great outcome if we can clear the 591 MILHIST-tagged articles during this drive - Dumelow (talk) 09:22, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Ping @Cielquiparle, WhatamIdoing, Andrew Gray, Smallbones, and Dumelow: just in case my previous section rename screwed things up, in which case sorry

So I have, with the help of Copilot, made quarry:query/102341, which searches through all of Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009 and counts up articles that are associated with WikiProjects, giving a total for each WikiProject. I plan to compile Petscans for all of those WikiProjects that are associated with 10+ articles (about 35 WikiProjects, I think), and post a short message with the top 20 (or all) pertinent articles, along with a link to a fuller Petscan. @Dumelow, thanks for noting the drive at MILHIST, and I will reply nearer the start of the drive with a list of the milhist-related articles (currently 16 of them) that are in Dec 2009. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:35, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Off hand, I'd guess that these are the ones most likely to be responsive:

• WikiProject Albums 73
• WikiProject Football 33
• WikiProject Television 31
• WikiProject Military history 16
• WikiProject Trains 15
• WikiProject Computing 13
• WikiProject Highways 7
• WikiProject Mathematics 6
• WikiProject Scouting 5

If you have to deliver messages by hand, I'd suggest starting with those.

Can you get the list of the 16 articles with "No WikiProject" associated with it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

quarry:query/102359 has the goods, I think. Your friend Slant (handwriting) is in there. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 20:06, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What do you think about having multiple WikiProjects in some rows? For example, there's a row for performing arts. We don't have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Performing arts, but we could add Wikipedia:WikiProject Dance and Wikipedia:WikiProject Theatre. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

For sure! If people want to add relevant WikiProjects in column 2, I can sort out the Petscan search URLs in column four. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 23:15, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I added a few to Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Petscan tips#Precanned queries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

If you run that query 102359 again, it should come up empty now (or very nearly so). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Going through old lists, I found an incorrectly tagged, unsourced BLP, Jay Mankita. Bearian (talk) 21:16, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Article revised and expanded and sources have been added now. Cielquiparle (talk) 12:07, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! Bearian (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Just read the Ars Technica article about the blacklisting of Archive.today and related sites. Please see WP:Archive.today guidance. Cielquiparle (talk) 12:09, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Due to technical issues, we are switching back to using Edit Summary Search rather than the Hashtag Summary Search for the March 2026 backlog drive.

Should we encourage people to use [[WP:MAR26]] in their edit summaries...even though technically the summary search should recognize both MAR26 and #MAR26 (is that correct)? @ARandomName123 @SunloungerFrog Cielquiparle (talk) 14:55, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

The edit summary search matches to summaries containing MAR26, so yes, #MAR26 and WP:MAR26 will be recognized (not case-sensitive). For reference, the last time we used the edit summary tool (WP:FEB24), we encouraged the use of [[WP:FEB24]], while only searching FEB24, which most people seem to have followed. (though I found only typing feb24 was more convenient and ended up using that during FEB24.) ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 18:09, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Should I go update the WP:MAR26 sections "Rules" and "Detailed instructions"? They still refer to the hashtag tool. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 17:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Chorchapu, please do! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 20:51, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I've made the update, someone else may wish to look over it to ensure I've not got anything wrong. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 20:55, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Looks great @Chorchapu. Thanks for doing that. Have now updated the instruction at the top of the page as well. Cielquiparle (talk) 06:26, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Has anyone else noticed that many (although not all) articles tend to start off as unsourced, then having a list of external links and random sources, then "one source", to "refimprove", to finally being well-sourced, absent our intentional intervention? Bearian (talk) 16:31, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Also, I'm finding a lot of unsourced or poorly sourced English language articles that have well-sourced German language content. {{Expand German |date=February 2026}} is becoming one of my favorite tags. Bearian (talk) 20:53, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

They're like developmental milestones. Bearian (talk) 17:12, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Recently added some citations to Canhoca, Angola, and despite there being railway enthusiasts talking about the station (they appear unable to perceive anything outside the station's boundaries, from their descriptions of the place) and a movie made where the train stops there, I still cannot prove there is an actual town there rather than just a railway station. If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated. Took off the tag because there are citations, but only for the station, not the town! Mrfoogles (talk) 03:03, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Mrfoogles Read the article now. It is not just any railway station. Cielquiparle (talk) 06:09, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, that was fast. Guess I should've checked ProQuest -- newspaper archives really work wonders sometimes. Mrfoogles (talk) 06:43, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

ProQuest definitely helped and then I found a couple of the Google Books sources via the pages that, as it turned out, were already linking to Canhoca, Angola. It is often worth checking the "What links here" tool for relevant information and sources, if the article isn't an orphan. Cielquiparle (talk) 02:49, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

It's early a.m. for me so I signed up for the backlog drive and without thinking jumped in and edited an article, adding MAR26 to it, and hit "publish." Then I realized, um, it's still February. $#@!! Will I still get credit for it? Oh-Fortuna! (talk) 12:56, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm afraid not, though you have still improved the encyclopedia. Add references to a few more articles (I think you need at least five) and you'll appear on our 2026 leaderboard. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:22, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

@Oh-Fortuna! Loving the enthusiasm for WP:MAR26 though. Enjoy the barnstar! Cielquiparle (talk) 21:51, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle@SunloungerFrog, here's what I wrote on my talk page in thanks for the barnstar: "HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA! I'm rolling on the floor, laughing, tears, you name it. This is fantastic, and better than a point. THANK YOU!!!!!" Wikipedia is so very much worth it, merci beaucoup. Oh-Fortuna! (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 If we need to run tests, there actually seem to be multiple editors using MAR26 in their edit summaries now. Cielquiparle (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Thanks, I'll use them to test the review tool, which I need to adjust for the edit summary tool. The leaderboard and point tallying will be done by DreamRimmer's bot, as with previous drives. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 07:27, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

The article should be in next weekend's edition. Currently at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#Unreferenced_articles_backlog_drive. What I need is an amazing pertinent image for the front page that will link to the article. If anyone (@Cielquiparle and ARandomName123:) has ideas, please suggest away! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Nice work @SunloungerFrog. Re: image, maybe there isn't time...but one thought was if we could just have a simple line graph image plotting out the numbers you cite within the article – in other words, showing a steep decline from backlog drive to backlog drive. (It's more like a background image so could be more "suggestive".) Cielquiparle (talk) 22:12, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps something that suggests searching for sources, like the images in the cat and subcats of C:Category:People reading in art (e.g. [1], [2], [3]) Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 23:16, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Oh yes, I love the last one. It looks exactly like my desk. I'm going to go with that one. Many thanks, @Cakelot1. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 23:06, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Apparently Tile-based game...set a record for longest period of time an article has remained unreferenced (since 2001). But perhaps there is another unreferenced article that is even older...in the December 2009 category or elsewhere? (It is tricky because articles that are that old don't have complete histories for technical reasons.) @SunloungerFrog Not sure if this is worth mentioning – maybe it's too late – but it's possible that it might motivate a Signpost reader to hunt for another elusive whale. Cielquiparle (talk) 15:27, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I will see if I can weave it into the Signpost article somehow, either later on today or tomorrow's before the deadline. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 15:36, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Calling the February 2026 marathon results a few hours early. Thanks to everyone who hung in there despite the backlog numbers briefly creeping up due to large batches of articles which had their only source removed (e.g. Goodreads and IMDb). (A good reminder that two quality sources are better than one if at all possible, but we'll take what we can get.)

We had 6 finishers with over 100 points. @Bearian was once again head and shoulders above the rest with 393 points. @4meter4 leapfrogged to an impressive second place finish, with @JoeNMLC still well within striking distance from a year-to-date point of view.

In 4th place we had our 2025 champion @Silver seren, followed by @MediaKyle just one point behind, making a strong Top 10 leaderboard debut. There was a two-way tie for 6th place between newcomers @B.Jayden and @WindBorneListener, each with 74 points. To them and to everyone else who joined in for the first time in February: Welcome!

More information Rank, User ...

Rank	User	Total articles in Feb 2026
1	Bearian	393
2	4meter4	170
3	JoeNMLC	115
3	Cielquiparle	115
4	Silver seren	103
5	MediaKyle	102
6	B.Jayden	74
6	WindBorneListener	74
7	SunloungerFrog	58
8	Sleepytimecat	41
9	Coldupnorth	40
10	ARandomName123	29

Close

Interested in getting involved? You can track the year-round marathon results here, running in parallel with the WP:MAR26 backlog drive. Whether you decide to sprint or to go long-distance, WikiProject Unreferenced articles appreciates your contributions.

Here's to collectively making a massive dent in the total backlog in March. Happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 21:48, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

@SunloungerFrog Have you been getting unexplained errors on Massviews? Sorting Wikilinks works for me but sorting Categories does not. Cielquiparle (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle, in short, yes. There are now more severe rate limits on the use of the relevant API, which, if you happen to breach them, apparently causes your client to be blocked temporarily. There's more at meta:Talk:Pageviews_Analysis#Massviews not returning any results. You should be OK if whatever you're trying to sort has fewer than 1000 pages. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:14, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Just an update on this. Massviews has now been fixed, and a run will complete, but it is about 20 times slower than it was previously: used to be c. 100 articles per second; now it's c. 5 articles per second. So make sure you have something else to do while your Massviews query runs. MusikAnimal (WMF) is going to make it so that Massviews will be an authenticated service, so you will log on with your Wikimedia credentials, at which point it should run a lot faster. That's tracked at phab:T420295. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:15, 17 March 2026 (UTC)