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Unreferenced articles backlog drive: Unreferenced articles in English Wikipedia - help us in the backlog drive!

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10 March 2026

File:Lezende man in een interieur vol boeken en papieren, RP-P-2015-26-812.jpg

Legaat van de heer S. Emmering, Amsterdam of Mr. S. Emmering, Amsterdam

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WikiProject report

Unreferenced articles backlog drive

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Introduction

The MAR26 backlog drive run by WikiProject Unreferenced articles is well underway, with over 150 participants. During these drives, we focus on reducing the number of articles that contain no references, by searching for and adding inline citations to reliable sources that verify claims made in the article.

Over the years, we have made enormous progress in getting sources into articles. Fifteen years ago, there were over 314,000 articles tagged as unsourced. At the start of this drive, there were only about 39,000 left to go, and a shrinking number of articles that have yet to be tagged. The backlog drives are a key part of our success. Please sign up and help us get the total number down to zero.

Drive goals

Our goals for this drive are fourfold:

Add inline citations to at least 6,000 unreferenced articles
Bring the total backlog to below 60,000 articles
Clear the backlog of unreferenced biographies of living persons completely
Finally clear the Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009 backlog!

History

Chart showing the number of unreferenced articles on English Wikipedia over the period 8 April 2008 to 25 February 2026

This chart shows how the backlog (that is, the number of articles in Category:All articles lacking sources) has changed over time.a] The highest recorded point was an eye-watering 314,663 articles on 15 December 2010. That was partly due to a bot that was run at the end of 2009, which added some 110,838 articles to [Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009.

Thankfully, it has been on a decent downward trend since then, and we have been able to make a good dent in the backlog in all our past backlog drives.

In WP:FEB24, we went from 111,643 tagged unreferenced articles to 97,343, a net decrease of 14,300.
In WP:NOV24, we went from 80,645 tagged unreferenced articles to 72,134, a net decrease of 8,511. We also (temporarily) reduced the number of unreferenced biographies of living persons (BLPs) to zero.
In WP:JUN25, we went from c. 58,500 tagged unreferenced articles to 49,028, a net decrease of 9,509 which surpassed our goal of getting under 50,000.
In WP:NOV25, we went from 47,658 tagged unreferenced articles to 40,259, a net decrease of 7,399. And again, we brought the number of unreferenced BLPs to zero.

There is more historical data that shows the size of the monthly backlog categories over time.

Current status

Since the end of September 2025, we have been tracking both tagged unreferenced articles – that is, articles not undergoing a deletion process that are tagged as {{unreferenced}} or a variant – and probably unreferenced articles – that is, those articles that are likely to be unreferenced but are not tagged as such, as determined by ARandomName123's excellent bot, which runs once a day. For more information on the latter set, see this discussion.

The chart below shows that tracking; for context, it equates roughly to the little dashed box on the bottom right of the historical chart above. Number of articles in backlog Date 0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 9/30/2025 11/29/2025 1/27/2026 Unreferenced BLPs Unreferenced articles Unreferenced lists Probably unreferenced articles Probably unreferenced lists Unreferenced articles statistics (updates daily) At the beginning of the day (UTC) on 10 March 2026 there were:

36,214 tagged unreferenced articles, a change of −279 since the day before
27,763 probably unreferenced articles, a change of 15 since the day before
That is, a total backlog of 63,977 articles still to deal with, a change of −264 since the day before

At the current average rate of 144 articles per day , it will take 445 days to clear the backlog , finishing on 29 May 2027. (raw data)

Oldest unreferenced articles

We recently added a source to Tile-based game. That may have set a record for the longest period of time an article has remained unreferenced - the article had no sources when it was created on 12 July 2001, and remained that way until Cielquiparle added an inline citation on 1 March 2026, some 24+ years later!

Here are a few of the oldest articles that are still tagged as unreferenced. Please do cite 'em up, and join the drive if you'd like to help out more!

Mass media in Laos
Negligence per se
Economy of the Netherlands Antilles
Production team
Riddarfjärden
Transport in Saint Lucia
Piet Hein Tunnel
Word usage
Easter in Latvia
Māras
Turnpike Lane, Haringey
Under Secretary's Lodge
Connector (mathematics)
Mainstream hardcore
Rex Catholicissimus

Footnotes

^ With thanks to ARandomName123's original idea and code

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