Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/June 2025

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Welcome to the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles June 2025 backlog drive! When the drive began, there were approximately 58,500 articles tagged as entirely without references on Wikipedia. By the end of the drive, we reached 49,028, a net decrease of 9,509 and surpassing our goal of getting under 50,000.

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)

Find an unreferenced article. These can be found in the backlog of articles tagged as unreferenced.
Add at least one inline citation of a reliable source to the article, then accurately update its tags.
Include #JUN25 in the edit summary (once per article) to have your contributions counted in this drive. There must not be any immediately preceding characters before the hashtag.^[a]

Reviewers will check submissions. 1 point will be awarded for adding references, and 0.5 points for each review. Mass deletion or tag removals are strictly prohibited.

Sign up here

Fix a random page lacking sources Fix a random BLP lacking sources

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

Where to get help

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, Kazamzam, Cielquiparle and ARandomName123. For technical issues, contact DreamRimmer, who is providing technical support for this drive.

Rules

1 point for adding at least one inline citation from a reliable source to an unreferenced article, usually tagged with {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}}. 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.
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.
No points for deleting an article via AfD, PROD or blank and redirect. (See this discussion)
All citing contributions without #JUN25 in the edit summary will not be counted. There must not be any immediately preceding characters before the hashtag.^[a]
- If making multiple edits to an article, include #JUN25 in only one edit summary.
- If the editor forgets to put that summary, they may add it retroactively using a dummy edit.
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.

Detailed instructions

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

Then, find a reliable source.

Familiarize yourself with reliable sources on Wikipedia.
For tips, see § Some tricks and § Determining what sources are usable.

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

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.
Add {{reflist}} and ==References== if not yet present (see MOS:ORDER).
Remove {{Unreferenced}} or {{BLP unsourced}}. 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.
Add an edit summary including #JUN25. 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:

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.

Progress

Update this page

Goal: Bring the backlog down to below 50,000.

Progress Chart
Date	Participants	Articles	Change since previous day	Change since beginning
1 June 2025	103	58,537	—	—
2 June 2025	112	58,061	476	476
3 June 2025	117	57,635	426	902
4 June 2025	119	57,118	517	1419
5 June 2025	119	56,770	348	1767
6 June 2025	121	56,407	363	2130
7 June 2025	123	56,144	263	2393
8 June 2025	124	55,889	255	2648
9 June 2025	124	55,581	308	2956
10 June 2025	127	55,343	238	3194
11 June 2025	128	55,070	273	3467
12 June 2025	131	54,764	306	3773
13 June 2025	132	54,482	282	4055
14 June 2025	134	54,266	216	4271
15 June 2025	134	54,024	242	4513
16 June 2025	135	53,588	436	4949
17 June 2025	136	53,423	165	5114
18 June 2025	136	53,233	190	5304
19 June 2025	136	53,023	210	5514
20 June 2025	136	52,789	234	5748
21 June 2025	136	52,616	173	5921
22 June 2025	136	52,361	255	6176
23 June 2025	137	52,200	161	6337
24 June 2025	139	51,935	265	6602
25 June 2025	140	51,749	186	6788
26 June 2025	140	51,400	349	7137
27 June 2025	140	51,099	301	7438
28 June 2025	141	50,861	238	7676
29 June 2025	143	50,461	400	8076
30 June 2025	143	50,059	402	8478
1 July 2025	143	49,344	715	9193
2 July 2025	143	49,028	316	9509

Milestones

8 June 2025: August 2009, the oldest category at start of drive, is completed
10 June 2025: Added citations to more than 3,000 articles
12 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 55,000
16 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 54,000
17 June 2025: September 2009, the second oldest category at the start, is cleared
20 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 53,000
21 June 2025: November 2009, the fourth oldest category at the start, is cleared
24 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 52,000
28 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 51,000
30 June 2025: Total number of unreferenced articles below 50,000
1 July 2025: September 2019 is cleared, bringing the total of completed categories to five

Oldest backlogs

Cleared backlogs

Category:Articles lacking sources from August 2009 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 1, 2025 with 54 articles. 0 left.

54 / 54 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from October 2009 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 1, 2025 with 75 articles. 0 left.

75 / 75 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2009 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 1, 2025 with 98 articles. 0 left.

98 / 98 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from November 2009 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 1, 2025 with 103 articles. 0 left.

103 / 103 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2007 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 25, 2025 with 1 articles. 0 left.

1 / 1 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2019 (Category does not exist or has been deleted due to completion of task.)
Started at June 27, 2025 with 20 articles. 0 left.

20 / 20 (100%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009
Started at June 1, 2025 with 7,760 articles. 5,397 left.

2,363 / 7,760 (30%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from January 2010
Started at June 1, 2025 with 132 articles. 50 left.

82 / 132 (62%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2010
Started at June 8, 2025 with 249 articles. 164 left.

85 / 249 (34%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from March 2010
Started at June 17, 2025 with 304 articles. 263 left.

41 / 304 (13%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2010
Started at June 17, 2025 with 206 articles. 176 left.

30 / 206 (15%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from May 2010
Started at June 21, 2025 with 141 articles. 105 left.

36 / 141 (26%)

Smallest backlogs

Category:Articles lacking sources from June 2024
Started at June 27, 2025 with 62 articles. 48 left.

14 / 62 (23%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2023
Started at June 27, 2025 with 98 articles. 55 left.

43 / 98 (44%)

Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2011
Started at July 1, 2025 with 100 articles. 99 left.

1 / 100 (1%)

Leaderboard

Last updated July 03, 2025, 01:14 UTC

Rank	User	Tally	References	Reviews	Total
1	JTtheOG	Tally	1236	99.0	1335.0
2	Frost	Tally	1039	22.5	1061.5
3	Davidindia	Tally	468	145.0	613.0
4	Lulusword	Tally	437	22.0	459.0
5	Luis7M	Tally	436	15.5	451.5
6	Nayyn	Tally	377	0.0	377.0
7	Silver seren	Tally	375	0.5	375.5
8	Cielquiparle	Tally	365	2.5	367.5
9	AwerDiWeGo	Tally	359	0.0	359.0
10	KhoaNguyen1	Tally	303	40.0	343.0
11	Liandrei	Tally	334	4.0	338.0
12	Secretlondon	Tally	253	2.5	255.5
13	Local Internet User	Tally	192	10.0	202.0
14	Cdjp1	Tally	76	63.0	139.0
15	Toweli	Tally	138	0.0	138.0
16	The joy of all things	Tally	129	6.0	135.0
17	DeemDeem52	Tally	118	0.0	118.0
18	Suonii180	Tally	93	18.5	111.5
19	Yiosie2356	Tally	106	0.0	106.0
20	Itzcuauhtli11	Tally	92	12.5	104.5
21	Golem08	Tally	90	11.0	101.0
22	FictionWitch	Tally	99	0.0	99.0
23	Bearian	Tally	90	0.0	90.0
24	Coeusin	Tally	86	0.0	86.0
25	Sleepytimecat	Tally	83	2.0	85.0
26	R0paire-wiki	Tally	83	0.0	83.0
27	Suriname0	Tally	78	0.0	78.0
28	ARandomName123	Tally	66	3.5	69.5
29	Coldupnorth	Tally	58	0.0	58.0
30	MrLinkinPark333	Tally	50	5.0	55.0
30	Sam Sailor	Tally	55	0.0	55.0
32	Lenticel	Tally	54	0.0	54.0
33	Cakelot1	Tally	52	0.0	52.0
34	D-Flo27	Tally	51	0.0	51.0
35	Nick Number	Tally	50	0.0	50.0
35	Penny Richards	Tally	50	0.0	50.0
37	Smallangryplanet	Tally	48	0.0	48.0
38	Vegantics	Tally	47	0.0	47.0
39	ProtoKiwi	Tally	45	0.0	45.0
40	Visviva	Tally	44	0.0	44.0
41	SunloungerFrog	Tally	42	0.0	42.0
42	Engineerchange	Tally	37	0.0	37.0
42	Dougal18	Tally	37	0.0	37.0
44	Mmemaigret	Tally	36	0.0	36.0
45	Spiderpig662	Tally	29	6.0	35.0
45	Wizardman	Tally	35	0.0	35.0
47	Opm581	Tally	30	4.5	34.5
48	PamD	Tally	33	0.0	33.0
49	TheSlumPanda	Tally	32	0.0	32.0
50	1AmNobody24	Tally	27	3.0	30.0
51	Giuliotf	Tally	29	0.0	29.0
52	Feralcateater000	Tally	28	0.0	28.0
52	Voorts	Tally	21	7.0	28.0
54	NorthernWinds	Tally	27	0.0	27.0
54	Lollipoplollipoplollipop	Tally	18	9.0	27.0
54	Yaaaaargh!	Tally	27	0.0	27.0
57	Grumpylawnchair	Tally	24	0.0	24.0
57	Itdoesntmatteranymore	Tally	24	0.0	24.0
59	Sariel Xilo	Tally	23	0.0	23.0
60	Jengod	Tally	22	0.0	22.0
61	Pasados	Tally	21	0.0	21.0
61	TheLiteraryLoon	Tally	21	0.0	21.0
63	Victuallers	Tally	20	0.0	20.0
64	Paprikaiser	Tally	18	0.0	18.0
65	1ctinus	Tally	16	0.0	16.0
65	Hog Farm	Tally	16	0.0	16.0
67	GranCavallo	Tally	14	0.0	14.0
67	Moriwen	Tally	14	0.0	14.0
69	HouseBlaster	Tally	13	0.0	13.0
69	Ethmostigmus	Tally	13	0.0	13.0
69	Garsh2	Tally	13	0.0	13.0
69	Ayji	Tally	13	0.0	13.0
73	BaduFerreira	Tally	12	0.0	12.0
74	CosXZ	Tally	11	0.0	11.0
74	DanGFSouza	Tally	11	0.0	11.0
76	Pragmatic Puffin	Tally	9	1.5	10.5
77	Mrfoogles	Tally	10	0.0	10.0
77	Spookyaki	Tally	10	0.0	10.0
77	Gobonobo	Tally	10	0.0	10.0
80	Valorrr	Tally	8	1.5	9.5
81	Fade258	Tally	9	0.0	9.0
81	RandomMainstream	Tally	9	0.0	9.0
83	Kmccook	Tally	8	0.0	8.0
84	MainlyTwelve	Tally	7	0.0	7.0
84	Suntooooth	Tally	7	0.0	7.0
84	ForsythiaJo	Tally	7	0.0	7.0
87	AllCatsAreGrey	Tally	3	3.5	6.5
88	Bo-3903	Tally	6	0.0	6.0
88	Hhmontanac	Tally	6	0.0	6.0
90	Turtlecrown	Tally	5	0.0	5.0
90	Quxyz	Tally	5	0.0	5.0
90	ClaudineChionh	Tally	5	0.0	5.0
90	Econterms	Tally	5	0.0	5.0
94	Kazamzam	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
94	Mox Eden	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
94	Samoht27	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
94	Ivebeenhacked	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
94	Meanderingbartender	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
94	Geneseditor14454	Tally	4	0.0	4.0
100	CanonNi	Tally	3	0.0	3.0
100	Clarityfiend	Tally	3	0.0	3.0
100	Wh67890	Tally	3	0.0	3.0
100	Aaron Liu	Tally	2	1.0	3.0
100	Whisperjanes	Tally	3	0.0	3.0
100	Longestview	Tally	3	0.0	3.0
106	Voidxor	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	TrademarkedTWOrantula	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	Whpq	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	History6042	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	Ajeeshkumar4u	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	Mellk	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
106	Yoblyblob	Tally	2	0.0	2.0
113	DandelionAndBurdock	Tally	1	0.0	1.0
113	Imperatorhobbes	Tally	1	0.0	1.0
113	Goldsztajn	Tally	1	0.0	1.0
113	Scaledish	Tally	1	0.0	1.0
113	Muirjohnnyes	Tally	1	0.0	1.0
-	Floating Orb	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	CycoMa2	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Hwqaksd	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Yue	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	GraziePrego	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	GOAT Bones231012	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	PacificDepths	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	VastV0idInSpace0	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Calmkelp	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	WilliamMarkRock	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Timur9008	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Riley1012	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Demt1298	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Endrabcwizart	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Mooonswimmer	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Poiuytrewq09876	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Destinyokhiria	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Nnev66	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Triptothecottage	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Merlinderhindergrinder	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Thefallguy2025	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	JavaHurricane	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Carlodivarga-s	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
-	Mrkoco77	Tally	0	0.0	0.0
Total			9201	522.0	9723.0

Participants

Sign up here

Reviews

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.

Go to the /Reviews subpage

Tips

Determining what sources are usable

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:

Tabloids – Daily Mail, listicles at Hindustan Times, etc.
Blogs – Wordpress, Blogger, personal websites
Wikipedia mirrors, substantially duplicating existing content
Books not under editorial control, print-on-demand, or self-published from groups such as Lulu.com, AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, Xlibris, PediaPress, etc. (tip: search Wikipedia for the publisher's name)
Websites made up of user-generated content such as IMDb, Goodreads and Fandom

Some tricks

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.

Unreferenced biographies

The articles below are all the unreferenced biographies of living people that are not currently subject to a deletion process. Please remove entries once references have been added. This section will be updated regularly.