Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles

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Backlog

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)

33,179! SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:25, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

32,648! Catfurball (talk) 15:23, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

31,916! Catfurball (talk) 15:18, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

32,270! Catfurball (talk) 15:33, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

33,515! Catfurball (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

35,185! Catfurball (talk) 15:25, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

38,126! Catfurball (talk) 19:20, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

39,663! Catfurball (talk) 15:27, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

40,072! Catfurball (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

41,250! Catfurball (talk) 15:35, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

42,355! Catfurball (talk) 15:41, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

43,127! Catfurball (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

43,066! Catfurball (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

44,004! Catfurball (talk) 18:55, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

44,603! Catfurball (talk) 16:47, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

44,453! Catfurball (talk) 15:44, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

44,011! Catfurball (talk) 18:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

43,952! Catfurball (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

42,964! Catfurball (talk) 16:02, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

41,944! Catfurball (talk) 18:36, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

40,446! Catfurball (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

39,951! Catfurball (talk) 17:13, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

37,949! Catfurball (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

36,975! Catfurball (talk) 14:36, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Counting totals

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)

60,801! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 00:11, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

59,971! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

58,889! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 04:19, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

56,904! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:58, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

55,264! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:23, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

54,962! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:55, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

53,992! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:38, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

52,955! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:34, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

51,943! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:56, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

50,964! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:33, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

49,380! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

48,156! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:04, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

47,746! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:56, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

46,988! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

45,691! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 04:35, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Update

The Progress box now reports, below the graph, these three numbers, the change with respect to the day before, and a prediction about when the backlog might disappear. The progress report will automatically update once a day. I'd like to thank ARandomName123 for sterling help behind the scenes to ensure that the chunk of "probably unreferenced articles" is refreshed every day. Any questions, give me a shout. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:18, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @SunloungerFrog and @ARandomName123. Looks great. Liking the prediction of when the backlog might finally be eliminated and that it is all automated. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:36, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Cleared December 2010

Done with Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2010. Also (maybe) back to this Wikiproject (though I'm pretty busy with other stuff) بادهای شمال ❄️ (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Done with Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2011. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:36, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Fantastic! Bearian (talk) 11:22, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Done with Category:Articles lacking sources from May 2011. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:19, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Done with Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2011. Cielquiparle (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Done with Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2023. Cielquiparle (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Marathon update for May 2026

The world is different now that most unreferenced articles and lists have been tagged. Thanks to @Cakelot1, @Lollipoplollipoplollipop, and others for your heroic work on this front. And to those who have hung in there during the deluge, massive hats off to you too.

Here is a belated leaderboard with the Top 11 finishers in May 2026. @Silver seren head and shoulders above the rest at 451 points, but @WindBorneListener similarly impressive at 219. Strong performances from @JoeNMLC, @Bearian (in first place for year to date), and @MediaKyle, all over 100 points.

Rank	User	Total articles in May 2026
1	Silver seren	451
2	WindBorneListener	219
3	JoeNMLC	188
4	Bearian	139
5	MediaKyle	101
6	Cakelot1	46
7	Gnisacc	39
8	Suriname0	31
9	Thisiscarmend	28
10	SunloungerFrog	27
11	Jähmefyysikko	27

If you're wondering what this is all about...you can track monthly progress on the 2026 leaderboard here. Add citations to unreferenced articles, and remember to remove the tag. By participating, you are part of a massive effort to improve the reliability of information and quality of articles on Wikipedia. Cielquiparle (talk) 04:45, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Greetings, Within all the unreferenced articles, a tool that helps me find articles of interest is the "Topic filter". First group that I like is "Education", and within those articles listed, I successively browser search "University" then College, School, Institute. The other topic is "Sports", and browser search "Football" (soccer) articles. Cheers and happy Referencing, JoeNMLC (talk) 14:20, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

@JoeNMLC Is "Topic filter" a tool or extension or browser technique? Cielquiparle (talk) 00:20, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle - There is {{Template:Filter category by topic}} added (manually) for a number of categories. After a new month begins, if articles exceed 100 or so, I add the template, along with "Random article" button. My checklist is at JoeNMLC/Article category progress page (a bit cluttered, but functional). I found that template some years ago in my usual Wikipedia wanderings. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 14:41, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this yeoman's work! Bearian (talk) 11:24, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Are we on for August?

Last I checked, we booked August 2026 in the central calendar for the next backlog drive. @ARandomName123 @SunloungerFrog Are you available...? Are we on? Cielquiparle (talk) 13:18, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes I should be around, though maybe slightly less so for some of it. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:31, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I'm free for August. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:08, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Created the signup page for the August 2026 backlog drive which still looks lonely at the moment. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:10, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Do we have any idea what we want our goal to be? And what number we should be tracking for the progress (ie. taggged, probably+tagged, or both). Also if there was anything else from last drive that we had issues with, feel free to bring it up. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 05:46, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

See below for goals topic. I think we should track citations added, and total backlog (and explicitly not tagged vs. probably). Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:52, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Had lots of issues around Reviews last time around. Happy to monitor Reviews more actively this time around. Added note that "Corrections are encouraged" for now at the top. Speaking of which @ARandomName123, should we get rid of the note about using AUG26REVIEW in the edit summary, if it messes up the counter? Cielquiparle (talk) 05:53, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Right yeah reviews could be improved. I don't think AUG26REVIEW tags are commonly used, but the bug that caused it to count it was fixed by DR last time so it shouldn't mess anything up anymore. It's a bit useless right now, but I guess we could keep it since it makes it easier to identify which edits are a part of this? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:08, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer Pinging you in for awareness that the WP:AUG26 backlog drive is on for WikiProject Unreferenced articles. Thanks as always for your support. Cielquiparle (talk) 01:45, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

fwiw I messaged DR earlier, and they agreed to help. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:24, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Newbie

Hallo, I've just signed up, after somehow finding Bearian's "Portfolio" plea about the need to reference all our BLPs. I;ve done a handful just now, changed {{Unref BLP}} to {{RefimproveBLP}}, added the project banner to the talk pages.

What triggers a "count" for the leaderboard? Does it need a hashtag somewhere, or is it the adding of the project banner, or what? Just curious really, as I don't care much about leaderboards etc, though it's quite fun to see them.

I found a useful technique for finding sources can be to look at the other language wikipedia articles and find something I can read or translate. PamD 11:36, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I tried a few "random unsourced article"s, but they were all far too hard - the BLPs are doable in each case I've tried so far! PamD 11:37, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

For the marathon leader board it's just removing the unref templates (so redirects or fixing false positives also count). I think it only starts counting after you've done 5. The rules for backlog drives are slightly more strict and requires the use of hashtags, but you'll find that at the drive's page (e.g.) when there's one on. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 11:57, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Welcome @PamD. You might be interested in this petscan, which returns all unreferenced articles that have an {{Expand language}} template on them, suggesting that there may well be easy-to-nab references in corresponding foreign language articles. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:07, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @PamD. In addition to above, to find a foreign language version of English Wikipedia article, at the URL address, change the "en." to "es" (Spanish), or "fr" (French), etc. If the f.c. article is not spelled exactly & displays "not found", another hint is to go to that language's Search & begin typing to possibly find a spelling variant. For example: Yoro F.C. (en) is Yoro Fútbol Club (es). Cheers & happy editing. JoeNMLC (talk) 16:26, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for advice, @SunloungerFrog and @JoeNMLC, but I just follow the link at top right to "Other languages" and look at the one which is likely to be the home language for the topic so might have the fullest and best sourced article (helped by Google translate if need be), or a language I can read or get the gist of. Refs are sometimes in English even if the article isn't. PamD 17:05, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

And I see I'm on the leaderboard at 6, already. PamD 17:07, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

But although I'm joint 86th, that undercounts the list of active participants - if there are joint 11ths then the next should surely be ranked 13, etc? Ah well, here I go, newbie criticising the system... (ducks for cover)! PamD 17:22, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

hi Pam! welcome to the project, I really like working on unreferenced articles and hope you do too. I think you have identified some of the key elements already of the project: very difficult to source subject material and translating useful sources from other languages! In addition to what others said I would also say this is definitely a project that requires a bit of boldness towards deletion and redirection. There are a lot of older articles that are not notable. If you run into anything tough post it here! I think we could be a bit more collaborationist on this project sharing tips and ideas. Cheers, Gnisacc (talk) 18:23, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Goals for WP:AUG26

(sign up here)

What should our goals for the forthcoming drive be? Here is a starter for ten; suggestions welcome!

• Add inline citations to at least 6,000 unreferenced articles
• Clear the backlog of unreferenced biographies of living persons completely
• Bring the total backlog to below 40,000 articles (stretch goal)
• Clear the backlog of unreferenced articles from 2011 completely
• Bring the number of months of unreferenced articles down from 178 to below 170.

Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 05:44, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Just not sure about getting the total backlog to below 40,000 if our starting point will be ~49,000? Cielquiparle (talk) 06:15, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Well we did get 8,954 in MAR26, but I guess it is a bit optimistic, especially if sourcing gets harder as the backlog decreases. I could probably give us a lower starting point by clearing out the couple hundred remaining false positives in the probably list, and some lists that clearly don't need references (like List of mining companies) ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:21, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Is there a template we can put on navigational lists like this so that we can always keep them from the backlog? SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:00, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe {{compact ToC}}? I'll add it to the bot. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:10, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123, @SunloungerFrog, There's also {{Navigation list}}, not sure if it's in the filter. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 22:08, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Good spot @Cakelot1! I'm going to use that a lot more, and I suggest that it should definitely go in the filter. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 22:13, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added that to the filter as well. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:16, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

I had intended to put stretch goal next to that last one SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:59, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:16, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Ok let's do it. Cielquiparle (talk) 06:23, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Are there any more interesting goals? Maybe clear all of 2011? Stretch goal, all of 2012? Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:03, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Clear all of 2011. Reduce number of months in the backlog to below 170 (i.e., raise awareness for the fact that months are sometimes cleared out of order). Cielquiparle (talk) 07:14, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Added above. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:41, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

I have a suggestion how about completely clearing out Category:Unreferenced album articles, Category:Unreferenced animation articles and Category:Law-related articles lacking sources. Catfurball (talk) 17:28, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Dealing with lists and indexes

A topic that often comes up within WP:URA is whether lists must have sources. I thought I'd set out my personal rules of thumb, in the hope that we might collectively discuss and amend them to come to a helpful conclusion for us all as we come across them.

• Lists that are purely navigational - that is, they consist solely of links to other Wikipedia articles - do not need sources. They should be:
  • Tagged with {{Navigation list}} and added to Category:Wikipedia indexes if they are arranged alphabetically; talk pages tagged with {{WikiProject Lists}} and {{WikiProject Indexes}}.
  • Tagged with {{Navigation list}} and added to Category:Outlines if they are arranged topically or hierarchically; talk pages tagged with {{WikiProject Lists}} and {{WikiProject Outlines}}.
  • If they contain an {{Unreferenced}} template, the template may be removed with a suitable edit summary, for example Purely navigational list; does not require sources.
• Lists that are navigational and contain members that are not Wikipedia articles should have inline citations to sources that verify the reason for their inclusion. The preamble to the list may set out selection criteria for members of the list, and accordingly the chosen source(s) should demonstrate that the selection criteria are met. Talk pages tagged with {{WikiProject Lists}}.
• Lists that contain substantive information in addition to links to member articles should have inline citations to sources that verify that information - it will probably be possible to re-use one or more references from member articles. Talk pages tagged with {{WikiProject Lists}}.
• Lists that are notable because they have been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources should have inline citations to sources that reflect those discussions. Talk pages tagged with {{WikiProject Lists}}.

Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Looking at real examples:

• List of South African poets This is an example of your first category, and is currently tagged as nav list. This is appropriate I think. The only claims being made on this page are the implicit "[guy] is a South African poet" which is fine since every entry is a blue link where the first sentence in the article essentially says "[guy] is a South African poet".
• List of botanical gardens in Romania. This is an example of your second category, lets call them an embryonic nav list. Every entry is probably deserving of its own article and it would eventually end up like above, a page full of blue links. The issue is the many red links. When the link is blue, the claim "[place] is a botanical garden in Romania" is immediately verifiable. When it is red, it is not. So these embryonic nav lists should be cited.

Edge cases:

• List of Women's Professional Soccer stadiums. This is one step above a nav list. Its a list of blue links, but extra data is included about every entry (incredibly common situation across Wikipedia). There are claims being made on the page that are not cited and are not immediately obvious when opening the blue link: "[stadium], with a capacity of [capacity], was used in [year range] by the [team]".
• List of incidents of civil unrest in Colonial North America. This is like above. Its a mostly list of blue links, but annotated with a bare bones short description. But there are also entries on this list where the inclusion of the blue link on the list is not being the blue link is directly a member of the list but something that happened to the blue link is a member of the list. E.g.: The "burning of the ship Peggy Stewart" is the event that warrants an entry on the list, not the ship "Piggy Stewart". The article, Piggy Stewart talks about the burning, but it is a minor aspect of the article. I think this entry on the list should be cited since it makes a claim that is not immediately obvious by opening the article, as well as the redlinks.
• List of law schools in Sweden - list contains nothing but blue links, so should be a nav list. The issue is the claims being made about the entries "[university] has a Master of Laws program" is not immediately obvious from the entry article.
• List of fauna of Toro Negro State Forest - like above, contains nothing but blue lists, but the claims "[animal] is found in Toro Negro State Forest" is not immediately obvious from each entry's article.
• List of Brazilian royal consorts, again one step above a nav list. I think the claims made in this article however are all readily apparent since all entries are blue links and each individual entry's dates, fathers, spouses are all immediately obvious when opening the entry's article, so not sure if this should be cited and its probably not a nav list either. Point of comparison to List of Armenian royal consorts, which serves the same purpose, but needs citations since there are entries that are redlinks and there are entries which aren't links at all.

I think the definition of {{navigation list}} should be "contains blue links and only blue links whose entry on the list is immediately obvious upon reading the lead or infobox of the entry's article", and anything else should be a cited list. I think the definitions given using phrases "purely navigational" or "contain substantive information" are not specific enough. //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 10:43, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

@SunloungerFrog Has this now been implemented and does that explain the big drop this month in the overall number? Cielquiparle (talk) 06:18, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I have not done anything further on this; I think the drop is related to @ARandomName123 adding some more templates to the false positives list. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:33, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

SunloungerFrog is correct, the drop was due to reducing the number of false positives through templates and such, though this did include some list templates, reducing the list by about 1k. It's technically challenging to implement this sort of smart sorting, as it requires deciding which claims need a source and which don't. I may end up just creating a false positives list that is manually added to. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:46, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Top 10 marathon update for June 2026

Yes, it is already mid-July but with another Unreferenced article backlog drive coming up in August for sprinters, let's take a moment to see how the marathon progressed in June.

@Silver seren and @JoeNMLC were neck and neck for first place in June, with an impressive 535 and 495 points, respectively. They were followed by @Bearian, in third place also with triple digits and @WindBorneListener with 99. (These 4 editors happen to also be in the top 5 for the year-to-date, though not in that order.) All of our other Top 10 finishers dealt with more than 1 unreferenced article for every day of the month, a solid achievement.

Rank	User	Total articles in June 2026
1	Silver seren	535
2	JoeNMLC	495
3	Bearian	148
4	WindBorneListener	99
5	Gnisacc	59
6	SunloungerFrog	45
7	JTtheOG	41
8	Presby Libertarian	38
9	Swisswikiman	38
10	Ranicher	33

Monthly marathon progress can be tracked on the 2026 year-to-date leaderboard here. Unlike the backlog drive sprints, no special edit summary is needed in the marathon, but you do have to remember to remove and/or replace the unreferenced article tag. Whichever format you prefer, if you sign up for the August 2026 backlog drive your activity will automatically show up in the marathon leaderboard as well (though with a slightly different score).

Thanks for your hard work everyone. Keep going and happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 03:56, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Family tree of German monarchs

I got interested in the list of unsourced popular articles in WP:MAR26, after seeing that Family tree of German monarchs is on there. The specific issues with that article may be something for the article talk page, but I've got a more general question that I hope you might be able to answer.

The article is currently in Category:Articles lacking sources from October 2025. However, it was tagged as being 100% original research in Special:Diff/498318375 (19 June 2012), and was added to Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2012 at that time. The original research was removed in the following edit, but this was immediately reverted with an edit summary "You took out the reason for the article, genius." -- True, but not very helpful.

In March 2016, a bot added a nonsense citation and replaced the "unreferenced" tag with a "refimprove" tag. The "refimprove" tag was removed in Special:Diff/1037639956 (7 August 2021) because "Extensive citations found under each House. Not needed here." The single, nonsensical reference added by the bot years earlier was finally removed in March 2022. It was tagged as unreferenced again last year.

I guess I have two questions:

1. Are there other articles that have nonsense references (instead of being flagged as unreferenced) because some bot malfunctioned years ago?
2. What should be done with articles like this? I find it borderline impossible to improve.

I agree with the assessment that it is original research, based on a genealogy chart created by some random user 15 years ago, plus the original research of lots of editors who have since tried to improve it. The "extensive citations under each house" don't help at all, not only because a lot of WP:SYNTH would be required to combine the (sometimes contradictory) sources into the seemingly consistent image suggested by Family tree of German monarchs, but also because those articles rarely go into enough detail. For example, Carolingian dynasty gives family trees for all the male members of the dynasty, which is completely useless when trying to verify the female members mentioned on Family tree of German monarchs.

To give just one example, to illustrate the issue: The first article about a woman that I clicked on was Hemma. I have since tried to verify the range of possible birth years, but the alleged range of 803 to 808 is not mentioned in her article, and I have failed to find out where those numbers come from. Her Wikipedia article gives her birth year as circa 803 (without a citation), and one of the references in her Wikipedia article gives her birth year as 809. The chart with which the Family tree of German monarchs started doesn't include either of those numbers. The 803/808 range was added at some point in the past 15 years with no trace of evidence. Her article on the French Wikipedia (fr:Emma de Bavière) says she was born circa 808 (and specifies the decade from 800 to 809 in the infobox). The German Wikipedia (de:Hemma (Ostfrankenreich) gives 808 exactly; neither of them cite sources for any of those dates. I suspect the story will be similar for many of the hundreds of individuals in that family tree. All the way till the late middle ages, sources often disagree on the time of birth and death. Renerpho (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Okay, I found out why the bot seemed to add a nonsense reference: It didn't, it merely reacted to an act of vandalism a few days earlier. Renerpho (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm.

On the one hand, one might say WP:NOTGENEALOGY and Wikipedia:No original research, and take it to AfD.

On the other, one might say that this is a list article of sorts, even if the list is imaginatively formatted.

Just on sourcing, I would say that the best sourcing would be a minimal set of academic sources that discuss the family tree and lines of succession in whole or part. For example, the source below would probably help with some of the Ottonian chunk of the family tree:

• Leyser, Karl (1979). "Genealogical table: The Liudolfing Posterity, 850–с. 1025". Rule and conflict in an early medieval society : Ottonian Saxony. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-17525-0.

Failing that, then (many more) reliable sources to verify that, for example, Hildegard and Bernhart were the offspring of Louis the Younger etc. etc. would be needed, although it might be easy to fall foul of WP:SYNTH, or at least receive accusations of WP:SYNTH. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:36, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Haha wow I've not seen that exact sequence of edits before, of a basically empty reference being created and then someone going in to say the article now has a source. I have seen plenty of articles where a bot has absolutely demolished references though, including to the point where down the line they get deleted and the article becomes unreferenced. (see this project I work on here: Ref Expander batch 3) Gnisacc (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Promoting WP:AUG26

I have updated the newsletter. @ARandomName123 Could you please check that I updated it correctly and then work out how to distribute this week to newsletter subscribers (getting help if needed)? I will submit something to the Watchlist Notice team for Saturday. Cielquiparle (talk) 04:55, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Looks good to me. On a related note, I added a mention of the newsletter/mailing list to our main page. I'll ask DreamRimmer to help with the mailing list distribution again. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:51, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Newsletter has now been distributed by DR. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 07:18, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

As well, what do you think of another Signpost article? I will note that the next issue is 1 Aug so if could be worth just putting in a short notice, if nothing else. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 15:59, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Backlog drives typically just get a mention in the News and Notes section and/or the admin newsletter. Regardless, pinging @SunloungerFrog, who wrote the article last time, for their thoughts. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:50, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I can't myself write an article for the next Signpost. Maybe next time? I would want it to be a bit different than the last article, i.e. not a potted history + call to arms. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 18:56, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I could be open to writing something. I agree that we shouldn't just repeat what we said last time, but I have a few ideas. We could do a deeper-dive into the history of the WikiProject, or perhaps summarise the major accomplishments or milestones from either the past few months or during the drive. Unfortunately the deadline for the next issue is 1 Aug which does not leave much time, however I think I could manage at least a short piece in the week. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 19:04, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

And one large achievement I noticed recently that occurred between the last drive and now was the near-elimination of non-list "probably unreferenced" articles. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 19:06, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

@Chorchapu, if you have the bandwidth, please do go right ahead! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 19:08, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

As I was writing the Signpost draft and thinking about the upcoming anniversary it came to mind that perhaps it may be better to save the deeper-dive article for next year, when we have an occasion for it. I was also browsing the archives of the Signpost and saw that WikiProject reports are few and far between - having two on the same project so close to each other feels out of place, now that I look closer. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 17:48, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

20th anniversary of the WikiProject next year - can we clear the backlog by then?

In researching the history of unreferenced articles and the WikiProject, I discovered that the 20th anniversary of the creation of WP:URA is less than a year away - 16 May 2027. I also noticed that the backlog is, at current rates, due to be 100% cleared that summer. So, I propose a goal: clearing the entire backlog of unreferenced articles by the 20th anniversary of the project. I am of course open to other suggestions, but this convergence caught my eye. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 02:49, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

That seems like a good overarching goal to have. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 10:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Agree it sounds like a great goal! According to the central calendar, our next backlog drives are in December and February. @ARandomName123 @SunloungerFrog Should we move the December one to November and then schedule the final one in May? Would you likely be able to support? Cielquiparle (talk) 06:42, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Yes, that sounds good. We have 47k left, and we clear about 8k per drive month. With the 4 backlog drives planned, the reduction would be ~32k, leaving ~15k for us to clean up, or 2.5k per non drive month. I believe our current rate is just about that, if not a bit slower, so it is possible for us to make it. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:34, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Would you likely be able to support No reason why not. Do we get in trouble with the drive Overlords if we change our dates? I do note that APR27 is currently a free month, so scheduling our last one then would give us a couple of weeks in May to mop up the last articles before 16 May 2027. But maybe two drives a month apart (FEB27, APR27) is too much. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:43, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 Would you be free in April or should we avoid? Cielquiparle (talk) 04:42, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

We can do April. I should be free for the beginning and end of the month, which is really all that is needed. As long as nothing catastrophic happens during the middle, I should be fine. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 04:52, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@SunloungerFrog @ARandomName123 Have updated the calendar to reserve NOV26, FEB27, APR27 & MAY27. (In case we want the final one to go 6 weeks or so until we finish!) Cielquiparle (talk) 10:12, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that we are working on a moving target. During one of the prior campaigns, I spent days helping to clear the unreferenced BLP, only to have that category start to repopulate within 48 hours. However, your idea could work if we set a goal for that date. Just don't expect it to stay cleared. Rublamb (talk) 12:07, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

There will always be unreferenced articles, absolutely. But I do think its reasonably to set some kind of goal for finishing all of the like pre-2025 tags or something like that as a medium-term goal. Gnisacc (talk) 16:38, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I think our goal should be completing everything up to 2026, as a minimum result. Silverseren^C 01:55, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Deceased member

Would someone here unsubscribe deceased User:Gobonobo from future notifications? Sorry I was unable to find a way to do that. We'd like to preserve his pages as they are. Thank you kindly. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:55, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

User:Bobby Cohn removed his user talk from the mailing list yesterday. Rest in peace. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:41, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

A few lists

Poking around in advance of August. Top 1000 items from the list of unreferenced articles, sorted by incoming links, sorted by page view counts includes: B-flat major, Acre War, Admission to practice law, Student wing, Russian forms of addressing, Social class in France, Basic science (psychology), Party secretary, Shipbuilding in Russia, Law of Spain, Slovak nationalism, Signed French, Conservatism in Colombia, Independent Liberal, Prawn roll, Block (chess), Sierra Leonean passport.

10,000 random items from the list of unreferenced articles, sorted by page view counts, includes: È, Demon hunter, Lotteries in Australia, Seismic classification in Italy, Classic X-Men, Weight distribution, Automotive industry in Hungary, St John's Day (Estonia), Iraq National Card, Decisions in combat sports, Blocking (martial arts), Israel Tax Authority, Socialism in the Netherlands, North Mississippi, O'Hare (surname), Follow-on offering.

10,000 longest items from the list of unreferenced articles, sorted by page view counts, includes (along with a lot of lists): Jacob Smith (actor), GCE Ordinary Level in Sri Lanka, Vault Corp. v. Quaid Software Ltd., Vehicle registration plates of Lebanon, Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad, Logical link control, Reliant Rialto, SEC classification, Javanese name, Art release, Skai TV, Object manipulation.

Also interesting to sort those by estimated article quality, including: History of the Puritans under King James I, 19th-century Dutch literature, Northwestern Turnpike, State reserves of Azerbaijan, Bat species identification, Cylinder head porting, Sensors for arc welding, Hardware Platform Interface, Radar geo-warping, Language federation, History of the West Midlands, French presidential inauguration, Local insertion. Dreamyshade (talk) 02:59, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it now true that 'most unreferenced articles ... have been tagged'?

Hello @Cielquiparle You said in May that "most unreferenced articles ... have been tagged". I wonder if that is still true. I understand that of course you cannot say exactly how many unreferenced articles are still not tagged, but do you have a very rough estimate? If so how did you make the estimate? As you have all been doing great work referencing the tagged articles isn't it likely that now most unreferenced articles are not tagged? Chidgk1 (talk) 08:31, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1 Actually you might have missed it but if you read through several pages of our Talk page Archives going back a couple years, several editors who have asked the same question at various points in time over the last decade pooled their knowledge to start identifying all the likely unreferenced articles (and lists) algorithmically and systematically. The results were pretty staggering and as a project we had to change our way of thinking to finally accept that the amorphous cloud of "unknowns" was finally developing a recognizable shape. We have collectively gone through several rounds of interrogating the results to identify false positives and have also had to filter differently for articles that have newly become "likely unreferenced" for various reasons (e.g. monitoring "unref8") and are more actively monitoring mistagged articles. I leave it to @ARandomName123 and @SunloungerFrog and others to explain, but we are feeling really good about the mathematics behind this graph. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:13, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I am fairly sure that the majority of articles that meet the criteria at {{unreferenced}} are now tagged. You can see the criteria the bot filters for in this discussion, and the templates it filters for at User:ARandomName123/templatelist.

Based on the current graph, there are 205 untagged unreferenced articles (a significant portion of which is false positives) and 4831 untagged unreferenced lists (a significant portion of which probably don't need references, see the above discussions). The current total backlog, including tagged and untagged is 47,076. So, around 10.7% of pages have not been tagged, while the remaining 89.3% have been tagged. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 03:10, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 I started wondering if we have missed some untagged unreferenced articles after all. Basically looking at the incoming tagging via Bambots, I'm not certain all of these are coming from the unref lists. One possibility is that we missed some articles that newly became "likely unreferenced" before @SunloungerFrog suggested monitoring these via unref8. (Then again some of these are just poorly configured section tags that just need to be fixed.) Cielquiparle (talk) 05:47, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The detection code detects all external links as references, so in that sense, it is working correctly.

Going off the most recent 10 taggings that are not misconfigured section tags and that are still present, 2011 Siberia Cup has 2 ELs, Eräjärvi has a link in the infobox, 2026–27 Tigres UANL season has links that acts as references for the results, Hae Hawai'i has an IMDB link, Koumerou has a link to a map, List of flags of Louisiana was created and tagged before the daily update run, Farmacias Benavides has a link to the official website, same with Shasa and Bulk leach extractable gold had a source removed today and was tagged before the update run. Adolf Hubert van Scherpenzeel-Thim is a legitimate one that would've been caught by the bot. It had a source when I first ran through all articles, but the source was later removed. We started the continuous updates too far after the removal to catch it (since it only checks pages edited in the past 1-2 days), and the only edit since then was a bot, but we ignore bot edits in the daily update code. The next edit would be to add the unreferenced tag, so when it finally got put in the review queue again, it is already tagged and would be ignored.

For the last case, that would be the situation you suggested, that there's a number (probably not alot) of articles that were previously referenced, had their references removed after my initial run, and have not been edited since we began the daily update. There's a gap of a couple months where that could've happened. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:19, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you all very much Chidgk1 (talk) 15:30, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Suggest medical articles are prioritised

Hello,

I know it is a bit cheeky of me to make this suggestion when I am neither a medic nor a member of your project. However if I remember right your hard work and that of WP:Medicine brought https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?sort=relevance&search=articletopic%3Amedicine-and-health+incategory%3A%22All+articles+lacking+sources%E2%80%8E%22&title=Special:Search&ns0=1 down to zero a few years ago. It now has 20 articles.

If you agree that these should be prioritised could something be done? For example instead of the big red bars currently used to encourage people to reference the oldest known uncited articles perhaps something red could appear in a prominent place whenever an article dropped into the uncited medical subcategory. And maybe you could give extra points for these in your future backlog drives? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:13, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1 Could you reach out to the WikiProject to invite them to join the backlog drive? Think that has been the most effective way to get specialists involved. The main issue with medicine is that we probably prefer to have trusted editors with subject matter expertise working on medical topics rather than complete generalists with no medical or science background. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:02, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

OK I asked at the end of

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Medical articles with missing sources Chidgk1 (talk) 12:14, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle There are a few which don't seem to need medical expertise, such as List of responsibilities in the water supply and sanitation sector in Latin America and the Caribbean but for the others does that mean that if I nominate for deletion I don't need to do WP:BEFORE because I don't have subject matter expertise? I suspect the time of people who do have such expertise is in high demand, so if we wait for them we might be waiting years, during which time readers might be dangerously misinformed. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:08, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Referencing UK Ordnance Survey Identifier (OSID) as conferring Notability

I would like advice about handling articles such as Oaks Green on the Unreferenced list. My own view is that they should be deleted due to lack of notability. However having initiated a discussion in this vein on "Articles For Deletion" in respect to Fenton, Cumbria, feedback thus far indicates that this is probably not going to be the consensus view. Seemingly the fact that it is an Ordnance Survey Settlement is deemed sufficient to grant it notability.

The issue I feel is then how do we process such articles in respect to their Unreferenced status. Since I started considering Fenton, Cumbria as a candidate for deletion, another editor has added citations which in my view are weak but I’m not going to argue that point any further here. Instead looking at an article like Oaks Green I suspect that there are not even such weak citations available. So how do we legitimately remove its "Unreferenced" status ? Can we rely purely on a citation of its UK Ordnance Survey Identifier (OSID) ? Is there another recommended process to handle such an item ? ChilternEdge (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Very generally, if the settlement is "legally recognized" (that's subject to a lot of interpretation and debate!) and is or has been populated, it can be considered notable via WP:GEOLAND. I see that there is now a reference of sorts on Oaks Green. If they are unreferenced, then some sort of official source that says they're a village should suffice. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:09, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that clarification. ChilternEdge (talk) 14:14, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

For these kinds of places, I typically just look for a government document listing it as a recognized place (often in census data, but also sometimes maps released by a government entity). Not familiar with the UK OSID that you mentioned, but if its released by the government and lists it as a village I think that would be acceptable. Gnisacc (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Shortest articles

I made a database report that lists the shortest real articles (excluding disambiguation pages, set index pages, and similar intentionally-short pages): ShortPages. Other than the articles about proteins and genes, many of these are unsourced stubs, so this might be appealing to somebody as a list to work from. I suspect many of the tiny unsourced articles about tiny places could be WP:BLARed to a parent article (WP:NPLACE includes "If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the informal place should be included in the more general article on the legally recognized populated place or administrative subdivision that contains it."). Dreamyshade (talk) 23:25, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Advice requested regarding some American Football related articles / insufficient notability

I am working through an extract list of Unreferenced American football related articles.

There is a common thread to a number of them. These are stubs for single season coaches from college teams around the end of the 1800s. The articles do not contain any information additional to that found in the article for the college team for that year. If one was to add a reference it would just be lifted directly from that college team article and would probably cite a document which simply states the individual’s name on a team sheet.

In my view these articles have no separate inherent value and their subject have insufficient notability to warrant one.

Here are some examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nagle_(American_football)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Wilson_(American_football_coach)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Wright

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_A._King

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Cook_(American_football)

My feeling is the articles should be deleted and I have said as such in their Talk pages.

However as this is my first time in the Unreferenced Articles WikiProject I wanted to ask advice first. ChilternEdge (talk) 18:04, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi @ChilternEdge. I have not looked at the articles, but if you think they're not notable, I'd suggest redirecting them to the most relevant article about the team, and tag with {{R from member}}. If anyone objects, they can restore the article (and add a source or two...!) and there's no harm done. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 20:15, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi @SunloungerFrog Thanks for the advice. Sounds like a sensible approach. ChilternEdge (talk) 06:14, 14 August 2026 (UTC)