Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Archive 8

Do we really want a November backlog drive?

Just thought I'd ask, since that would be a month out. On the one hand, the marathon team seems to be making steady progress. On the other hand, we have a sizable "shadow" backlog lurking that actually could use a lot of attention. If we're going ahead with another backlog drive this calendar year, I would ask @Bearian, @SunloungerFrog, and others to proceed in October with adding a LOT more Unreferenced tags to the rather large trove of "likely Unreferenced" articles uncovered by @ARandomName123 earlier this year. The logic is that we want to start November with a high number that everyone can feel good about making a dent in (rather than seeing the number climb during the drive).

Or maybe that is something we should do in October regardless... If there is any way to keep the total number of articles tagged as Unreferenced *below* 50k though, that would be my preference. Pinging @Boleyn as well because a large influx of more Unreferenced tags means more reviewing and sorting will be required.

(Either way...for those marathon editors who don't particularly enjoy Unreferenced article backlog drives, I might recommend the approach taken by @Frost who if I'm not mistaken didn't sign up for the backlog drive but was one of the top editors the top editor for the marathon in June.) Cielquiparle (talk) 03:35, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the tags should be added in a large chunk before the drive, and preferably not during the drive like normal. I also wouldn't be opposed to pausing tagging entirely when a backlog drive occurs.

If we do tag, 50k might be a bit confusing as our last backlog drive did end below that at ~49,000. I doubt we would even hit 50k if we consolidate a month's worth of tagging, however. In the entirety of August, 2,291 articles were hand-tagged with the unreferenced tag or the BLP version, while in September so far, there was 1,632. @SunloungerFrog has also completed tagging of the BLPs (thanks!) so that stream of articles is no longer coming. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:28, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

As for whether to have a backlog drive at all during November, I'm able to help organize it as usual, but I'll be a bit more busy IRL compared to previous drives. Works for me though. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:33, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a million @ARandomName123. I have started the WP:NOV25 page (and signed up for the drive). @DreamRimmer: Will you be available to support? @Kazamzam: What about you? Cielquiparle (talk) 03:25, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Happy to support this drive. Please remind me a few days before the drive starts so that I can set up the bot. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:07, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree to do so. Bearian (talk) 08:52, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Bearian. Have we got past the letter "B" yet? Cielquiparle (talk) 03:31, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Not yet ... but I'm working on it. Bearian (talk) 07:25, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I am happy to support a backlog drive in November as best I can; also happy to just continue with the Marathon (which is probably what I personally enjoy more). If we were to hold one as planned, I'd definitely concur with what ARandomName123 has mooted, that is, no processing of the likely unreferenced blob during the drive, so that progress is obvious. One target could be to get the unreferenced BLPs (here) down to zero again, which would be pleasing, and with much less likelihood of a severe increase, as the untagged mass has been dealt with. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:19, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @SunloungerFrog. I have put you down as an organizer. As always, your curation of the Popular articles is appreciated. I was wondering if you could also create a page with basic Petscan tips for finding articles about specific topics, which we could link to from WP:NOV25 (and future drives perhaps)? Cielquiparle (talk) 03:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I will try and pull one together. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:00, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Top 15 URA leaderboard for October 2025

This month's marathon update is early and brief – but there are many contests that are still up for grabs (and may require further updates). Let's take a look.

Rank	User	Total articles in Oct 2025
1	Boleyn	769
2	Silver seren	405
3	Cielquiparle	233
4	JoeNMLC	168
5	Bearian	167
6	Coldupnorth	150
7	SunloungerFrog	109
8	JTtheOG	90
9	Wikishovel	77
10	Eva UX	58
11	Rfl0216	44
12	A.Deira.born	43
13	Elite words2	42
12	Significa liberdade	41
14	Suriname0	37
15	Cloudz679	36

@Boleyn slogged through hundreds of articles mistagged as Unreferenced – important work, especially given the influx of Unreferenced articles in October. @Silver seren also put in an impressive performance, with a whopping 405 points. Yours truly somehow managed to leapfrog @JoeNMLC rather late in the month, but the interesting battle here is between JoeNMLC and @Bearian, currently with just 1 point between them (168 vs. 167, respectively).

@Coldupnorth once again logged an impressive 150 points, making this a remarkable fourth month in a row (and perhaps helping to "raise the bar" as everyone else debated whether or not to overtake). From there, we skip over the editor who was using LLMs for mass article expansions whose contributions have since been mostly reverted...to find @SunloungerFrog in 7th place with 109 points. @JTtheOG is just under the 100 mark at 90 points, while @Wikishovel is at 77, and @Eva UX is in 10th place at 58.

While not all marathon competitors are backlog drive fans, the good news is that we are at 137 signups for the November backlog drive. We hope to make a huge dent in the population of articles tagged as Unreferenced and look forward to your ongoing contributions via whichever platform you choose. Thanks everyone and happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Top 51 URA leaderboard for November 2025 (Marathon)

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who participated in adding citations to unreferenced articles in November 2025! Thanks to your contributions, the number of articles tagged as Unreferenced is now hovering around 40,000, with an additional 32,218 of articles (including lists) that are "Probably Unreferenced".

As Reviews for the November 2025 backlog drive are technically still in progress, we will take a quick look at the marathon results for November 2025. The marathon runs year-round and simply counts each instance of an "Unreferenced" tag being removed. You can track the marathon leaderboard results here.

In the marathon, 9 out of 10 editors finished with 200+ points for November. As in the backlog drive, @JTtheOG finished far ahead of the pack with 1,013 points. The big surprise is second-place finisher @Bearian with 833 points – easily 600 more than their official backlog drive tally – suggesting that there were a lot of mistagged articles that needed to be fixed. @The joy of all things, who put in an impressive performance as likely runner-up in the backlog drive, is in third here with a staggering 558 points. Skipping over yours truly, we find @4meter4 and @Silver seren in 5th an 6th, ahead of @Dumelow of WikiProject Military history, @AwerDiWeGo, and @Engrigg22, each of whom logged more than 200 points. Not far behind in 10th is @Itzcuauhtli11.

Well done to all. We hope to see many of you continue the momentum in adding citations to unreferenced articles in December, January, and February, as part of the marathon, ahead of our next backlog drive in March 2026.

Happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Isn't it ironic?

(Cross posted) Reference table is still not referenced. Bearian (talk) 00:55, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

hahahaha that gave me a good chuckle YuniToumei (talk) 10:31, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Brilliant. Coldupnorth (talk) 14:24, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Adjustments for errors WP:NOV25 #NOV25

It has been called to our attention that the hashtag tool might have missed a few more qualifying edits – e.g. reported here by @M.Billoo2000. I believe the two missing points in question should be awarded retroactively. @ARandomName123 and/or @SunloungerFrog: Could you please check and let me know if you agree? If there is consensus I am happy for one of us to adjust the point total accordingly. (It doesn't affect "which" citation barnstar, I don't think.) Cielquiparle (talk) 16:24, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Feel free to adjust the point total. In this case, the edit summary tool shows 5 edits. For 3 of those edits, the hashtag follows immediately after the /* section */, which means there isn't a space before it, and it won't get picked up. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:47, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

On a side note, we should probably consider moving away from the hashtags given the reliability issues. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:49, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

OK. I have gone ahead and updated the table. @ARandomName123 Agree about moving away from the hashtag tool that gave us so many problems. Hope we can find an alternative soon. Cielquiparle (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

I've adjusted it to four and updated the template on their talk page. One of the edits to Kiran (serial) didn't add an inline reference. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:29, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks @ARandomName123! Cielquiparle (talk) 20:17, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Another marathon?

As the WikiProject Unreferenced articles 2025 marathon edges toward an exciting close – I wanted to ask @ARandomName123 if we can do it all over again in 2026? Cielquiparle (talk) 11:18, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Sure, I was planning on continuing it anyways. Might be down for a couple hours though, since some adjustments are needed for the 2025/2026 switchover. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:14, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @ARandomName123. Could we keep a record of the complete 2025 results somewhere? Cielquiparle (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I can move the current yearly page elsewhere. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:34, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Now moved to User:ARandomBot321/URAleaderboard/2025. Turns out my code isn't as bad as I thought it was, so no downtime seems to be necessary.

Anyways, happy new year! Hopefully we can clear out this backlog by the end of 2026! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:54, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Brilliant. Happy new year @ARandomName123! Let's do it. Cielquiparle (talk) 12:20, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I certainly think that a marathon in 2026 will be an excellent thing to do. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 20:42, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Tagging as unreferenced

I know that drive-by tagging is looked down upon but is going around and tagging pages as unreferenced okay? I noticed a significant difference between "probably unreferenced" and "tagged unreferenced" and though I would work on fixing that. Thanks, Chorchapu (talk | edits) 16:10, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

@Chorchapu, yes that's fine. Anything that crystallises "probably unreferenced" into "tagged unreferenced" is a good thing, because then editors that work off the CAT:UNREF backlog will get to them in due course. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:34, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 20:46, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Any way to stop unreferenced sections populating CAT:UNREF

I've come across this a few times. It seems that, if articles are tagged with {{Unreferenced|Section}} because there is an unreferenced section, then the whole article is listed in CAT:UNREF even when there are plenty of references elsewhere. Does anyone know how we might change this behaviour? It is a small point, I admit. A current example is Maciej Lewenstein. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:23, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Reading the docs it seems the given solution is to convert {{Unreferenced|Section}} to {{Unreferenced section}}. My quick and dirty regex search only turns up 2 articles with this problem (although probably better ways to figure that out). I'll also note that the only other article that comes up in the search (Tōbu Sano Line) probably should be in the completely un-referenced category. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 19:29, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

My solution is that I go in and manually remove the pipe every time I come across it. In other words, {{Unreferenced section}} is OK. It's the version with the pipe which is not. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:30, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

{{Unrefereced|Section}} should be removed as a parameter on the Unreferenced template entirely. It's the wrong template and I've been having to fix it constantly. The proper, separate template to be using is {{Unreferenced section}}. They are separate templates and the latter doesn't ping to the Unreferenced category. Silverseren^C 21:39, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks all - that makes sense! I had not realised there were two versions, one with a pipe and one without. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 22:38, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

On top of the two versions we have given as examples, there are also the many variations using terms like "Unsourced" or "Noref" or "Nosources", etc., together with "| section". (Just a reminder for anyone trying to automate searches for these instances.) Cielquiparle (talk) 02:11, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I've just had a look at the source for {{unreferenced}} and it looks like the category switch part (| cat = Articles {{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|section|needing additional references|lacking sources}}) is only checking for the lowercase section not the upercase Section which is what's causing the issues above. I think a solution to this would be to wrap the parameter {{{1}}} in an {{lc:{{{1}}}}} Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 10:40, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Top 25 finishers in the 2025 marathon

2025. In a world of turbulence and change, the intrepid participants of the WikiProject Unreferenced articles year-long marathon showed true grit as we collectively reduced the number of articles tagged as unreferenced from 70,000+ to below 40,000. That achievement is all the more impressive when you consider that the number of articles newly tagged as unreferenced continues to increase monthly – making the daily task of researching and adding citations feel not unlike Sisyphus endlessly pushing a boulder up a mountain. The good news is that thanks to work by @ARandomName123 and others, we have a better understanding about the pool of "probably unreferenced articles" and know that to finally eliminate the backlog of articles completely lacking references, we likely have less than 70,000 articles to go in total.

The full 2025 URA marathon leaderboard is available here. The excerpt below captures the top 25 finishers who also finished with at least 365 points, the equivalent of fixing 1 article a day every day of the year. Massive applause and thanks to everyone who took the time to find and contribute valid citations to reliable sources in 2025.

Each and every quality citation helps. The 2026 marathon leaderboard is already shaping up with several familiar names, as well as new contributors to the marathon. It may be a tall order, but 2026 *could* be the year that we finally clear the backlog. As always, the work requires care, but will likely feel even more challenging as we reach the bottom of the barrel.

Thanks to all for your continued camaraderie and support in what looks to be a pivotal year in improving and defending the accuracy and integrity of the encyclopedia.

Top 25 in the 2025 URA Marathon

Happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your work! Bearian (talk) 05:34, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Great work! surprising to see that I am still #4 but it seems like Silver seren is really starring the show.

Due to complications with my studies I am less available for such big projects. Good luck in 2026! NorthernWinds (talk) 15:43, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, @Silver seren is incredible. It was actually thrilling when both @JTtheOG and @Bearian finally managed to leapfrog @NorthernWinds late in the year. Good luck with your studies. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:09, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the update! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:32, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

And thank you, @Cielquiparle, for your cheery, kind and encouraging leadership over the past year. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 21:09, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Seconded, thank you @Cielquiparle and well done all Coldupnorth (talk) 07:58, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Hallucinated sources

If you find references added to articles that appear suspiciously garbled, hallucinated or fake, the place to report them is WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard.

If you are an ace reviewer like our recent backlog drive medalists (@Chorchapu, @Ivebeenhacked, @Bunnypranav), or the marathon crew fixing mistagged articles (@Boleyn, @Bearian, @Silver seren), there are many pages listed there requiring review as well. Cielquiparle (talk) 02:45, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Ok, will start on it this weekend. Bearian (talk) 23:45, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Top 20 finishers in November 2025 backlog drive

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)

Top 10 in January 2026 – New marathon

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.

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

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)

Dividing the cat

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)

Index pages not requiring references

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)

Are we doing a backlog drive in March?

@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)

Blacklisting of Archive.today

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)

Unsourced BLP

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)

Edit summary tool vs. Hashtag tool

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)

Process of sourcing

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)

Reaching out to WikiProjects etc.

@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)

A town or a railway station?

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)

I edited too soon

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)

Feb 2026 marathon Top 10 finishers

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!

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

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)

Registration for WP:MAR26 backlog drive now open

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)

The Signpost article - need image

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)

Massviews error messages

@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)

Geographic stubs

A lot of the (remaining) unreferenced article are geographic stubs. Can we merge these up into the next geographic level up?

For example: Keeley Lake. Can we combine all the unsourced articles about hamlets in Saskatchewan into:

• one page with hamlets in Saskatchewan; or
• Saskatchewan.

I realise the former doesn't solve the problem of them being unsourced but it does mean 1 unsourced page instead of say 100.

Is that a good theme for another backlog drive or just an idea for this backlog drive? MmeMaigret (talk) 09:02, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I think that a WP:BOLD merge or redirect to the next level up is generally OK - if someone objects, they can always revert, hopefully adding a source at the same time. In the case of your example, I am not convinced it is a hamlet, at least now: from this PDF the next level seems to be the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District (though Keeley Lake is not mentioned in that article), and it is denoted neither as a village, hamlet nor settlement, but rather as a "resort subdivision"; here it's denoted as a "recreational subdivision". List of communities in Saskatchewan is probably a better target. Or you could repurpose the article and say it's a lake in Saskatchewan where one may fish. There seem to be sufficient sources for WP:V to be able to say that; whether it is notable or not is another thing! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Category watch: Articles lacking sources from 2010

There are 39 articles total remaining that were tagged as unreferenced in 2010:

• October 2010 – 3 remaining nominated for deletion
• November 2010
• December 2010

Cielquiparle (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Try out a tool to find academic sources

Erasmus.AI has a tool they are testing that asks you to paste in a paragraph of text, breaks down all the claims made in the paragraph, and tries to match academic journal articles that support or refute each claim. If you interested in trying it out, please send me an email. (Just trying it out myself.) Cielquiparle (talk) 21:05, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

See, that's useful and there's been similar tools prior. It's really not "AI" either, so I dislike them using that terminology. Since that's going to turn people off from it. Silverseren^C 21:07, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah they don't. That was me. Have amended. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:45, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

"Rivers in Germany" - hundreds of Unsourced articles

Greetings, in my wanderings, I found Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2020. Back in 2011 these were created mostly by Dr. Blofeld and remain without sources. Testing with article Annenbach, I checked the corresponding German article which had "Google Earth" as a source. So I updated Annenbach article with a GE source. My question is: that update correct? and sufficient? Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 13:55, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

That google earth link appears to be to a pin that cites the en.wiki article. I don't actually see the Google Earth link at de:Annenbach? Might be hard to find sources on a stream with a catchment area of just 4.2km (according to de.wiki), but that page does cite which has some information (although this information differs from the de.wiki infobox). CMD (talk) 15:08, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The German article only has cite: <ref name="GE">Google Earth</ref>. For our English version, I expanded link directly to "Annenbach" river location. JoeNMLC (talk) 18:20, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@JoeNMLC Where are you seeing that cite on the German article? I linked to de:Annebach above, it has 7 sources: six maps/geographic data databases, and the one pdf I also linked. As the google map pin is a WP:CIRCULAR link back to that very article, it is not an appropriate source. CMD (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@CMD - Unable to find that wikilink at Annenbach, so it must have been at another article (unable to find which one) within that category. Sorry, my mistake. JoeNMLC (talk) 18:48, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Understandable, the en.wiki stubs blend together. Sadly, those without helpful sources at de.wiki will be the harder ones to source. CMD (talk) 01:31, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

@CMD - thinking about this overnight; changing that goggle-earth from a cite to "External link" may be better, to at least prove the river exists. Will update later today. JoeNMLC (talk) 13:58, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Marathon update for March 2026

While #TeamBacklogDrive is busy reviewing articles through 7 April, let's take a moment to look at the Top 22 finishers in the marathon for March 2026.

(The marathon runs year-round and you can track the ongoing leaderboard here. Points are counted when {{unreferenced}} tags are removed. So whether you are relatively new or an experienced backlog drive participant who just wants to keep on going with adding citations, you can enjoy the camaraderie and a bit of competition in April, May, June, July...until the next backlog drive in August.)

In March 2026, we have a total of 22 editors with 100+ points, 13 of whom had 200+ points, which is incredible. Another 32 editors had between 31–99 points, or between 1–3 points a day.

Rank	User	Mar 2026 Marathon
1	JTtheOG	1167
2	Flurrious	565
3	Bearian	534
4	Davidindia	480
5	Omegarightarrow	424
6	JoeNMLC	382
7	Sleepytimecat	364
8	WindBorneListener	290
9	Loibird90	271
10	Dumelow	255
11	Silver seren	245
12	Oh-Fortuna!	239
13	Apollo468	201
14	The joy of all things	186
15	GreatStellatedDodecahedron	147
16	Let'srun	145
17	Itzcuauhtli11	141
18	Cielquiparle	136
19	Local Internet User	134
20	Vegantics	131
21	SunloungerFrog	107
22	Penny Richards	101

What are the differences with the (preliminary) leaderboard for the March 2026 backlog drive? Unsurprisingly, first place on both leaderboards is @JTtheOG, towering in 1000+ territory. @Flurrious looks to be in second place on both leaderboards, looking at the References column only. The surprise is finding @Bearian in 3rd place on the marathon leaderboard in March, likely from his work in reviewing mistagged articles. @Davidindia is in 4th with a staggering 480 points.

(Adding citations to reliable sources is highly appreciated but you can also accumulate points in the marathon by correcting mistagged articles, which is important work because you will also uncover vandalism in the edit histories, encounter new editors who need help and guidance, and often find dodgy citations that need to be fixed...in addition to simply replacing tags for editors who added a valid citation but forgot to remove the tag.)

Speaking of which: Comparing leaderboards suggests that @Omegarightarrow in 5th place with an impressive 424 points may have forgotten to replace tags on ~39 articles, and that @Sleepytimecat in 7th place at 364 points may have forgotten on ~32 occasions. (Understandable considering the speed at which you were going, which is amazing.)

A special shout out to @JoeNMLC in 6th place in the March 2026 marathon with 382 points. JoeNMLC – who incidentally is currently 3rd in the year-to-date rankings – has been one of the many editors who persevered in chipping away at the gargantuan category "Articles lacking sources from December 2009" for a very long time. Well done and congratulations to you and everyone who contributed to this monumental achievement.

Keep going everyone and happy referencing! Cielquiparle (talk) 06:10, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

It says the tally should now be up to date but I've noticed my last 3 edits haven't been counted. (Doesn't change much for me but I thought I'd flag it just in case.) MmeMaigret (talk) 07:38, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 Could you please look into this? Cielquiparle (talk) 06:34, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe this is because the dates for the MAR26 leaderboard bot were accidentally set to March 31, 2026, 23:59 instead of April 1. Pinging @DreamRimmer. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:06, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. The leader board has stopped updating temporarily, but should resume soon. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:14, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @ARandomName123 and @DreamRimmer. @Bunnypranav: Could you do the honors in distributing barnstars? Cielquiparle (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Sending shortly… – DreamRimmer ■ 00:18, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: I see that the table has still not been updated to adjust the points for review deductions. Please ping me once that is done. – DreamRimmer ■ 00:23, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

@ARandomName123 I can do this if you are busy with exams. Is it just subtraction and manual updates line by line? Cielquiparle (talk) 03:23, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: That would be great, thanks! Yes, I usually just go line by line. Fails for duplicates should be ignored though, as the bot should account for this. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 04:20, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Actually, I can do the point deductions, I have a few days free. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 15:46, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Nevermind, I noticed you got started on them already. If you need any assistance though, just let me know! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:20, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer @ARandomName123 Have finally completed Leaderboard adjustments and essentially ready to send Barnstars. Please do a quick visual scan of the leaderboard rankings for any errors – we ended up manually re-adjusting the rankings and totals in several successive waves (though I think it's correct now). (Will de-brief everyone later about key findings from the re-review of the Reviews.) Cielquiparle (talk) 05:45, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: Looks good to me, thanks for finishing up those adjustments! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 08:27, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Awards done. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:49, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:35, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Cite Unseen

Highly recommend installing the Cite Unseen tool. There is a short description on Wikipedia which points you to detailed Cite Unseen page on Meta-Wiki with instructions on how to enable it. It's worth reading that Meta-Wiki page carefully to understand how the tool is categorizing sources (using WP:RSPS, WP:NPRSG, WikiProject-specific reliable sources guides, as well as other language Wikipedias' perennial sources guides, etc.), and to remember that it's mostly a prompt to consider potential concerns with a source: "You should never justify removing or adding a source solely because of information that Cite Unseen provides; you need to do your own homework as well." Cielquiparle (talk) 05:06, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I’ve installed it myself but prefer just the reliability and ‘really big issues’ to be shown. With everything it clogs up my ref section. But it is a good help for reliability. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 16:35, 2 May 2026 (UTC)