The following event is now closed. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate talk page.

Welcome to WikiProject Unreferenced Articles's February 2024 backlog drive! The referencing portion began on February 1 and ran until March 1, 23:59 UTC. At the start of the drive, there were 111,643 articles tagged as entirely without references on Wikipedia. At the end of the drive, there were 97,343, a net decrease of 14,300 articles.

There is a very simple way to improve Wikipedia: add at least one inline citation of a reliable source to any article tagged as lacking sources. Fewer unsourced articles means the quality of Wikipedia as a whole increases, accurate information becomes more reliable and transparent, and inaccurate information can be removed. (§ Detailed instructions).

To get through this backlog, which dates back to 2008, we need a lot of people to help with this monumental task. So leave your dent on the backlog today!

1 point was awarded for sourcing. Mass deletion or tag removals were strictly prohibited, and were subjected to disqualification.

If you need tips or guides, you can take a look at § Tips, the helpful guide at WP:CITE, or ask at the WikiProject's talk page. The drive began on February 1 and ran until March 1. To encourage additional reviews, the drive was extended for one week (March 1-8) as an additional review period. Only reviews were counted during this period.

1. 1 point for adding at least one inline citation from a reliable source to an unreferenced article, usually tagged with {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}}.
   • No points for simply listing references in a section.
   • To keep this drive focused, no points for adding additional citations to one article, though editors are encouraged to do so whenever possible.
   • Primary sources are permitted so long as they are only used to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts. Please see WP:PRIMARY.
2. 0.5 points for reviewing submissions of the drive. See more at /Reviews.
   • The point is less because reviewing submissions is easier than finding reliable sources. Nevertheless, reviewers have an extremely important job of verifying submissions and require a high level of trust.
3. No points for deleting an article via AfD, PROD or blank and redirect.
   • Per this discussion, encouraging these actions would cause more heat than light and does not belong to the focus of the drive.
4. All citing contributions without WP:FEB24 in the edit summary will not be counted.
   • If making multiple edits to an article, include FEB24 in only one edit summary.
   • If the editor forgets to put that summary, they may add it retroactively using a dummy edit.
5. Problematic behaviors are grounds towards disqualification and blocks. Examples are:
   • Spamming articles to AfD/PROD/blank and redirect
   • Mass-removal of {{Unreferenced}}
   • Adding fake references and content
   • Being disruptive by being uncivil, wikilawyering, etc.

Remember to tag your edit summary with WP:FEB24, both to advertise the event and tally the points later using Edit Summary Search.

Find an article in Category:Articles lacking sources (Credits to User:Ajpolino and User:Ipigott).

• Go to the search bar and type search term incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
• Go to the search bar and type articletopic:topic incategory:"All articles lacking sources". The list of topics can be found at mw:Help:CirrusSearch/articletopic.
• Take a look at § Popular articles
• For WikiProjects, take a look at Bambot's WikiProject Cleanup Listings, click on your project's "by cat", then scroll down to "Cites no sources".
• Use WP:PetScan and find the intersection between "All articles lacking sources" and your category.

Then, find a reliable source. Look for reliable sources, see §§ Some tricks​ and Determining what sources are usable for tips.

If at least one reliable source is found:

• Cite it inline.
  • Please add all the needed author, title and date metadata (see WP:CITE).
  • For recent books, ISBN and page numbers are strongly recommended.
  • The inline citation should go after the period without a space, not before it:
• Add {{reflist}} and ==References== if none are present (see MOS:ORDER).
• Remove {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}} when you are finished adding citations.
• (recommended) Add {{More citations needed}} to large parts of the article or add {{cn}} to short chunks of text.
• Add an edit summary including: WP:FEB24

If no reliable source can found with the best of your effort, according to WP:BEFORE, there are a few options:

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

Update this page

Goal: Bring the backlog down to below 100,000. Achieved on February 22! At the end of the drive there were 97,343 articles left, which means that since the start of the drive we have removed unreferenced tags from 14,300 articles.

Progress Chart

Date	Participants	Articles	Change since previous day	Change since beginning
1 February 2024	241	111,643	—	—
2 February 2024	254	110,859	784	784
3 February 2024	261	109,820	1039	1823
4 February 2024	268	109,147	673	2496
5 February 2024	271	108,439	708	3204
6 February 2024	274	107,808	631	3835
7 February 2024	274	107,189	619	4454
8 February 2024	278	106,446	743	5197
9 February 2024	278	105,743	703	5900
10 February 2024	279	105,305	438	6338
11 February 2024	281	104,847	458	6796
12 February 2024	282	104,342	505	7301
13 February 2024	284	103,956	386	7687
14 February 2024	284	103,494	462	8149
15 February 2024	284	103,056	438	8587
16 February 2024	286	102,715	341	8928
17 February 2024	288	102,169	546	9474
18 February 2024	288	101,749	420	9894
19 February 2024	288	101,415	334	10228
20 February 2024	288	101,127	288	10516
21 February 2024	288	100,819	308	10824
22 February 2024	288	100,348	471	11295
23 February 2024	290	99,975	373	11668
24 February 2024	290	99,645	330	11998
25 February 2024	291	99,408	237	12235
26 February 2024	290	99,065	343	12578
27 February 2024	290	98,792	273	12851
28 February 2024	291	98,413	379	13230
29 February 2024	292	97,845	568	13798
1 March 2024	292	97,343	502	14300

Milestonesedit

• 1,000 articles reached – February 2, 2024.
• 2,000 articles reached – February 3, 2024.
• 3,000 articles reached – February 4, 2024.
• 4,000 articles reached – February 6, 2024.
• 5,000 articles reached – February 7, 2024.
• 6,000 articles reached – February 9, 2024.
• 7,000 articles reached – February 11, 2024.
• 8,000 articles reached – February 13, 2024.
• 9,000 articles reached – February 16, 2024.
• 10,000 articles reached – February 18, 2024.
• 11,000 articles reached – February 21, 2024.
• Goal reached – February 22, 2024.
• 12,000 articles reached – February 24, 2024.
• 13,000 articles reached – February 27, 2024.
• 14,000 articles reached – February 29, 2024.

Oldest backlogsedit

Last updated March 08, 12:01 UTC.