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Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/February 2024

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

Let's build the encyclopedia.

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.

Rules

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  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:

Detailed instructions

[edit]

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

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:

Progress

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

Milestones

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  • 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 backlogs

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Cleared backlogs

Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2007‎ (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 4 articles. 0 left.

4 / 4 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from January 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 302 articles. 0 left.

302 / 302 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 261 articles. 0 left.

261 / 261 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 426 articles. 0 left.

426 / 426 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 337 articles. 0 left.

337 / 337 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from May 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 1 February 2024 with 283 articles. 0 left.

283 / 283 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 10 February 2024 with 355 articles. 0 left.

355 / 355 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2008 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at 17 February 2024 with 241 articles. 0 left.

241 / 241 (100%)

Leaderboard

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Last updated March 08, 12:01 UTC.

User Tally References Reviews Total points
User:CactiStaccingCrane Tally 12 0 12
User:DreamRimmer Tally 0 0 0
User:Cremastra Tally 16 0 16
User:Feralcateater000 Tally 77 0 77
User:Tails Wx Tally 1 0 1
User:Lee Vilenski Tally 13 0 13
User:Kj cheetham Tally 7 0 7
User:ARandomName123 Tally 100 5.5 105.5
User:NightWolf1223 Tally 2 0 2
User:CrafterNova Tally 0 0 0
User:AirshipJungleman29 Tally 7 0 7
User:Geni Tally 8 0 8
User:PerfectSoundWhatever Tally 64 17.5 81.5
User:Kazamzam Tally 112 0 112
User:Gnomingstuff Tally 55 21 76
User:Demt1298 Tally 103 0 103
User:StarTrekker Tally 0 0 0
User:Staraction Tally 0 0 0
User:Tooncool64 Tally 85 0 85
User:Ethmostigmus Tally 58 0 58
User:DressChimera241 Tally 6 0 6
User:NotAGenious Tally 0 0 0
User:SunDawn Tally 66 0 66
User:Riley1012 Tally 18 0 18
User:ForsythiaJo Tally 40 0 40
User:MrLinkinPark333 Tally 45 5 50
User:NatwonTSG2 Tally 0 0 0
User:IndigoManedWolf Tally 49 0 49
User:Davest3r08 Tally 16 0 16
User:PamD Tally 156 0 156
User:Penny Richards Tally 55 0 55
User:Waylon111 Tally 0 0 0
User:Frostly Tally 0 0 0
User:Meanderingbartender Tally 3 0 3
User:GamerPro64 Tally 18 0 18
User:Joe Roe Tally 0 0 0
User:Paulpat99 Tally 3 0 3
User:Sturmvogel 66 Tally 206 10 216
User:Egeymi Tally 925 0 925
User:Chaiten1 Tally 150 0 150
User:JuanGLP Tally 0 0 0
User:Mach61 Tally 53 0 53
User:Kencf0618 Tally 37 0 37
User:IAmAtHome Tally 0 0 0
User:Ca Tally 2 0 2
User:Bearian Tally 10 0 10
User:Worldbruce Tally 51 0 51
User:Dougal18 Tally 103 0 103
User:Rhododendrites Tally 91 0 91
User:Another Believer Tally 50 0 50
User:ThadeusOfNazereth Tally 0 0 0
User:Ealdgyth Tally 2 0 2
User:Moriwen Tally 270 0 270
User:GELongstreet Tally 13 0 13
User:ZWUZWUZWU Tally 0 0 0
User:TAnthony Tally 0 0 0
User:78.26 Tally 25 0 25
User:1AmNobody24 Tally 48 2 50
User:Ben Azura Tally 0 0 0
User:Broc Tally 169 33 202
User:Jaireeodell Tally 3 0 3
User:LEvalyn Tally 34 9.5 43.5
User:Yeeno Tally 0 0 0
User:Meleager91 Tally 32 0 32
User:Boardwalk.Koi Tally 2 0 2
User:Pothos144 Tally 11 0 11
User:Pinktoebeans Tally 45 6 51
User:Pickersgill-Cunliffe Tally 0 0 0
User:Flod logic Tally 0 0 0
User:WikiOriginal-9 Tally 0 0 0
User:Red Devil Tally 1 0 1
User:Bklibcat67 Tally 29 21 50
User:Johnson524 Tally 0 0 0
User:Voorts Tally 10 0 10
User:StefenTower Tally 6 0 6
User:That Tired Tarantula Tally 21 0 21
User:Wizardman Tally 38 0 38
User:Shushugah Tally 2 0 2
User:Novellasyes Tally 45 0 45
User:SVcode Tally 11 0 11
User:JimKillock Tally 2 0 2
User:CycloneYoris Tally 0 0 0
User:BusterTheMighty Tally 213 14 227
User:TrademarkedTWOrantula Tally 46 166 212
User:Patar knight Tally 2 0 2
User:Grorp Tally 29 0 29
User:Kiwatts Tally 46 0 46
User:Wracking Tally 0 0 0
User:BeanieFan11 Tally 51 0 51
User:Dobbyelf62 Tally 40 0 40
User:Innisfree987 Tally 7 0 7
User:GraziePrego Tally 3 0 3
User:Mir Novov Tally 52 3 55
User:AryKun Tally 0 0 0
User:Babakathy Tally 31 0 31
User:Tobyhoward Tally 0 0 0
User:Exp691 Tally 243 37 280
User:Youknowwhoistheman Tally 12 0 12
User:Boyinaroom Tally 0 0 0
User:456legend Tally 11 0 11
User:Leschnei Tally 14 0 14
User:Synthfiend Tally 51 0 51
User:Flux55 Tally 5 0 5
User:MainlyTwelve Tally 54 0 54
User:Butlerblog Tally 31 0 31
User:TheZoodles Tally 93 25 118
User:The Grid Tally 4 0 4
User:DarkStarHarry Tally 0 0 0
User:OhanaUnited Tally 2 0 2
User:Yoblyblob Tally 2 0 2
User:JaneClawsten Tally 39 4 43
User:Praseodymium-141 Tally 6 0 6
User:Xnyarla Tally 1 0 1
User:Coderzombie Tally 0 0 0
User:Davidindia Tally 160 0 160
User:Engineerchange Tally 28 0 28
User:Heihaheihaha Tally 7 0 7
User:DMPenguin Tally 0 0 0
User:SounderBruce Tally 12 1 13
User:Lacanthrope Tally 1345 0 1345
User:QuicoleJR Tally 0 0 0
User:Palisades1 Tally 8 0 8
User:Carcharias taurus Tally 3 0 3
User:Mr vili Tally 0 0 0
User:Noorullah21 Tally 72 0 72
User:PigeonChickenFish Tally 38 0 38
User:HistoryTheorist Tally 7 0 7
User:Gen. Quon Tally 0 0 0
User:Peter Flass Tally 42 0 42
User:TheDoctorWho Tally 15 10 25
User:MatthewDalhousie Tally 1 0 1
User:Trumpetrep Tally 509 0 509
User:HawkAussie Tally 9 0 9
User:D-Flo27 Tally 102 2 104
User:Contrawwftw Tally 26 3.5 29.5
User:Tosatur Tally 0 0 0
User:EmeraldRange Tally 5 0 5
User:Victuallers Tally 156 0 156
User:Prburley Tally 103 0 103
User:Neko-chan Tally 35 0 35
User:Vkwiki100 Tally 0 0 0
User:Fylindfotberserk Tally 0 0 0
User:ATeaAddict Tally 0 0 0
User:Suntooooth Tally 19 0 19
User:Dan arndt Tally 72 0 72
User:CipherSleuth Tally 20 0 20
User:SailingInABathTub Tally 0 0 0
User:VastV0idInSpace0 Tally 3 22.5 25.5
User:AnOpenBook Tally 66 0 66
User:Alanna the Brave Tally 8 0 8
User:UnexpectedSmoreInquisition Tally 0 0 0
User:Flurrious Tally 500 0 500
User:LemonSlushie Tally 0 0 0
User:StreetcarEnjoyer Tally 57 0 57
User:Jengod Tally 111 0 111
User:PritongKandule Tally 17 0 17
User:JoyD Smiths PTMr8 Tally 0 0 0
User:Snowflakedivertor Tally 3 0 3
User:Tom Radulovich Tally 10 0 10
User:Ratnahastin Tally 0 0 0
User:Pyrrho the Skipper Tally 11 0 11
User:Fico Puricelli Tally 0 0 0
User:THamuntili Tally 0 0 0
User:1keyhole Tally 2 0 2
User:Ellwat Tally 0 0 0
User:Nirmaljoshi Tally 64 0 64
User:CommissarDoggo Tally 6 0 6
User:Mychemicalromanceisrealemo Tally 0 0 0
User:Ligaturama Tally 16 0 16
User:Carrite Tally 0 0 0
User:Geraldshields11 Tally 0 0 0
User:Lord Clayton7 Tally 0 0 0
User:Ayenaee Tally 0 0 0
User:Significa liberdade Tally 111 0 111
User:Oldsanfelipe2 Tally 145 0 145
User:David Fuchs Tally 0 0 0
User:Per$1$tenceofv1$1on Tally 336 0 336
User:HouseBlaster Tally 7 0 7
User:Greyjoy Tally 9 0 9
User:Shenaall Tally 4 0 4
User:changeworld1984 Tally 0 0 0
User:BBQboffin Tally 4 0 4
User:etymologicon Tally 0 0 0
User:Nuel Jr Tally 0 0 0
User:DetriaSkies Tally 16 0 16
User:Nihonjoe Tally 32 0 32
User:Asilvering Tally 6 0 6
User:Annwfwn Tally 55 0 55
User:Skyshifter Tally 2 0 2
User:Aintabli Tally 25 0 25
User:0xDeadbeef Tally 0 0 0
User:Cielquiparle Tally 277 30.5 307.5
User:Tikwriter Tally 1 0 1
User:Butterdiplomat Tally 0 0 0
User:Pilaz Tally 23 3 26
User:Grungaloo Tally 29 0 29
User:Jaguarnik Tally 44 3.5 47.5
User:Elvisisalive95 Tally 18 0 18
User:GoldenBootWizard276 Tally 0 0 0
User:Aintiainti Tally 0 0 0
User:NoahKale Tally 0 0 0
User:Mugtheboss Tally 12 0 12
User:Bill Wrigley Tally 0 0 0
User:Oronsay Tally 1 0 1
User:GranCavallo Tally 36 15 51
User:Wil540 art Tally 54 0 54
User:Meteorname Tally 9 0 9
User:R0paire-wiki Tally 37 0 37
User:Jon698 Tally 2 0 2
User:Cloventt Tally 56 7 63
User:Betterkeks Tally 87 60 147
User:Bneu2013 Tally 21 0 21
User:Apollo468 Tally 112 18 130
User:Jnglmpera Tally 9 0 9
User:Persingo Tally 1 0 1
User:SpookiePuppy Tally 41 25.5 66.5
User:Jamzze Tally 0 0 0
User:Reconrabbit Tally 33 0 33
User:Secretlondon Tally 0 0 0
User:Aezarebski Tally 2 0 2
User:OnlyNano Tally 4 0 4
User:ItsCheck Tally 0 0 0
User:LeónGonsalvesofGoa Tally 0 0 0
User:BobKilcoyne Tally 0 0 0
User:Vrxces Tally 11 1 12
User:Tim Landy Tally 31 0 31
User:Glx272727 Tally 0 0 0
User:Merlinderhindergrinder Tally 7 0 7
User:Lollipoplollipoplollipop Tally 5 6.5 11.5
User:Replayful Tally 101 0 101
User:Ingratis Tally 126 0 126
User:Altamel Tally 4 12.5 16.5
User:Perimeander Tally 43 0 43
User:Waterfelt Tally 128 0 128
User:Iostn Tally 62 0 62
User:John Broughton Tally 0 0 0
User:Icandostuff Tally 5 0 5
User:Liandrei Tally 47 0 47
User:Geardona Tally 6 0 6
User:Chaotic Enby Tally 6 0 6
User:Chris troutman Tally 28 24.5 52.5
User:Ruud Buitelaar Tally 99 2 101
User:Reidgreg Tally 29 5 34
User:DutchTreat Tally 16 7.5 23.5
User:Eddie891 Tally 14 0 14
User:Whpq Tally 8 0 8
User:Astrophobe Tally 1 0 1
User:InterstellarGamer12321 Tally 0 0 0
User:Goldsztajn Tally 60 12 72
User:TimothyBlue Tally 0 0 0
User:JTtheOG Tally 1276 155 1431
User:Crispulop Tally 134 2.5 136.5
User:Firefangledfeathers Tally 18 7 25
User:Shonyx Tally 0 0 0
User:GeoffreyT2000 Tally 2 0 2
User:Pretzelles Tally 55 0 55
User:Ghosts of Europa Tally 7 0.5 7.5
User:Blitzfan51 Tally 5 0 5
User:Suriname0 Tally 33 0 33
User:Endrabcwizart Tally 0 0 0
User:Mjroots Tally 4 0 4
User:AlexandraAVX Tally 22 0 22
User:Aerin17 Tally 10 0 10
User:Isaidnoway Tally 306 0 306
User:Acebulf Tally 1 0 1
User:Epicgenius Tally 1 0 1
User:94rain Tally 2 0 2
User:Tokisaki Kurumi Tally 5 0 5
User:Donner60 Tally 8 0 8
User:Alansohn Tally 37 0 37
User:Golem08 Tally 0 0 0
User:TappyTurtle Tally 1 0 1
User:Pedantical Tally 1 0 1
User:Millerdl Tally 3 0 3
User:IgnatiusofLondon Tally 175 27 202
User:BirdMeat Tally 0 0 0
User:Rosallorico Tally 2 0 2
User:Rocfan275 Tally 7 0.5 7.5
User:NikosGouliaros Tally 16 10 26
User:ArcticSeeress Tally 13 0 13
User:Simongraham Tally 223 0 223
User:MRRaja001 Tally 0 0 0
User:Rusalkii Tally 43 45 88
User:Lenticel Tally 102 9 111
User:BaduFerreira Tally 11 0 11
User:Dblu9494 Tally 11 0 11
User:Straughn Tally 3 0 3
User:The-Pope Tally 3 0 3
User:Le Loy Tally 9 0 9
User:Turtlecrown Tally 26 0 26

Participants

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Sign up here

Reviews

[edit]

All participants with experience in citing sources were encouraged to perform reviews. Reviewers were awarded 0.5 points for each review. A tool was available to locate unreviewed submissions and simplify wikitext formatting.

Tips

[edit]

Determining what sources are usable

[edit]

Even though we are just citing one source to the article, that source must be chosen carefully. That source needs to:

This is a lot to take in. And worse, sometimes you couldn't find such a source! It can be very hard to determine whether you should go forward to cite the article or ask for its deletion, even for experienced WikiGnomers, and sometimes you have to follow through with your gut feelings.

Generally speaking for English languages sources, citing Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Resources or Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources or peer-reviewed textbooks (for math and science articles) is enough to do satisfy all four of these criteria. However, other books and most reliable non-English sources are not present in these lists. In that case, you need to determine all four of these criteria yourself. It's probably easier to give examples of common not suitable sources:

Some tricks

[edit]

Searching sources

  • Use "" (double quotes) to search for the term exactly. This means that "pinnochio" will only show up articles with words matched with "pinnochio", not pinocchio (although some websites will disregard this and show the wrong search term anyway).
  • Some articles, especially for more general topics, might have sources available with slightly different wording -- "basketweaving" vs "basket weaving," "basket weaver," etc.
  • Search inside millions of old and new books at Google Books and Archive.org - for the archive, go to https://archive.org/search then click the search bar, then click "search text contents" radio button, it will search over 10 million books.
  • Access to some paywalled content, including Newspapers.com and ProQuest, is provided to editors via The Wikipedia Library.
  • For Google, use - (ie. dash) as a way to remove unwanted entries, like -pinocchio
  • See more tips at Wikipedia:Advanced source searching
  • You can search for related articles on Wikipedia (as in other pages or other languages) and access some sources there. Do not copy the reference in verbatim. Only after you've checked the source and that the source indeed verify the text, you may cite it in the article.

Reading and parsing sources

  • Use machine translation, either at a website or as built in to your web browser, for reading foreign article texts.
  • For foreign texts on Google Books where their texts cannot be copied, take a screenshot, go to Google Translate and click on the "Images" button. Upload the image there and Google Translate will translate the passage inside the image itself.
  • Use the text searching feature to locate what you are looking for faster, such as Ctrl+F on Windows or ⌘ Cmd+F on macOS.

Processing articles

  • Twinkle might be helpful for cleaning up article banners and nominating articles for deletion
  • While you're there, you could expand the article or clean up any other problems you see with it.
  • If you are familiar with AWB/JWB, you can use it to quickly add a "References" section and {{reflist}} template.
[edit]

The articles below are some of the more popular pages on Wikipedia and thus might be easier to find sources. They are queried from pageviews analysis at Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS). Please remove entries once references have been added. This section should be updated every day.

Badges

[edit]