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November 2024 Backlog Drive Planning

Popular article instruction/issue

T-8 days! Much obliged to @Turtlecrown for cleaning up the rules. One thing I noticed from this is that the 'Popular articles' section is a little wonky. It also needs to be updated daily - is there someone willing to commit to this? I'm hesitant to do so only because I couldn't get the WMCS link to work at first pass, which is somewhat concerning. Kazamzam (talk) 16:51, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming it is fixed before the drive, I can help with that section. It's fairly simple, just copy-paste the 50 (I think?) articles in. The wikitext would need to be added, but that's easily done with some code or just ChatGPT. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 04:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like WMCS is working again. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 04:10, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ARandomName123 The list of "Popular articles" is very popular among our Backlog Drive participants. Let me know if you need help updating it daily – if so, please let me know how best to go about grabbing the list. It seems we tend to get stuck at the top part of the alphabet, which is unfortunate. It would be great if we could mix it up a bit – either just wipe the list and start over completely fresh once a day and/or grab a more random selection from throughout the alphabet on a daily basis. Cielquiparle (talk) 02:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cielquiparle: Yea, sorry about the delay, just updated it a few minutes ago. I'm not sure how we'd mix it up in terms of the alphabet, but you could change the timeframe the view count is counted. The default looks like the past 3 weeks.

If you see it hasn't been updated by around 00:10 UTC, feel free to do it. My usual workflow is just to let it run, then copy and paste the first 50 entires, including the misc. stuff so there's no need to copy-paste one by one, into ChatGPT (I'm too lazy to write a script lol) with a prompt along the lines of Please format the follow list in a code block in the format *[[article title]]. ChatGPT will then add the required wikitext and remove the unnecessary pageview numbers/rankings. Then just click the Copy Code button that pops up, and paste it into the section. Should be fairly quick, but if you find a method that works better for you, feel free to use it. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ARandomName123 Thanks for the instructions. Re: Alphabet bias, I think what's happening is that we're trying to run the Massviews analysis on too large of a category (exceeding 20k items), so it's always taking only the first 20k items in alphabetical order. Without writing a script, the best bet may to narrow by sub-categories...like everyone's favorite "Articles without references from December 2009", for example. So I just went ahead and added a handful to the top of the list (also because I had to delete several from the "new" list you refreshed which put back a bunch of articles that are no longer Unreferenced because of the WMCS lag and because #TeamBacklogDrive is so incredibly fast). Cielquiparle (talk) 03:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, thanks. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 04:01, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cielquiparle @ARandomName123 In case it is a bit useful, to work around the 20K alphabetical limit in Massviews, you can do a Petscan against the category, sorting the output by number of incoming links in descending order (as incoming links is a sort of proxy for popularity) and then taking the top 1000 into a Pagepile, and running Massviews against that. For example:

Petscan 29784886 pagepile - no output filters
Petscan 29783275 pagepile - tries to filter out "List of blahblahblah" with a nasty hacky regex

and then just choose the Use this pagepile in Massviews option to sort by actual popularity. SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:45, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SunloungerFrog: Thanks, I'll try that out for the update later today. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:58, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SunloungerFrog@ARandomName123 Thanks so much for that, the "Popular articles" list looks much better now! (Knocked off a few myself...can't wait to see how it evolves on a daily basis.) Cielquiparle (talk) 11:00, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cielquiparle no problem, very glad to help. The combination of Petscan and Massviews is really useful. In a similar vein, I added a section Popular biographies below popular articles that uses this Petscan 29822085 Pagepile and Massviews in a similar way. If you think the section is overkill, please do remove it - I won't be at all offended. SunloungerFrog (talk) 11:37, 13 November 2024 (UTC) P.S. @ARandomName123 your ChatGPT hack is awesome. Best use of AI yet![reply]

Watchlist notice and invitations

Would like to post a watchlist notice (text ad at the top of every editors' Watchlist), with the words the "November 2024 Unreferenced Articles Backlog Drive has begun. How is it done? Cielquiparle (talk) 08:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @The wub, @DreamRimmer, @ARandomName123, @Kazamzam. Cielquiparle (talk) 08:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cielquiparle: If you'd like to request a watchlist notice, you can do so at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages. Just a quick note: we can only display a watchlist notice once per event, and it stays up for seven days. Since we already displayed one for this drive from 20 October to 28 October, we won't be able to request it again. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For info: I put a short invitation note on the Talk pages of four of the large WikiProjects from here (Germany, Military history, Football, and Albums) with a link to bambots' /bycat/[WikiProject]#Cites no sources. Turtlecrown (talk) 13:05, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unreferenced articles by number of views?

Hello. I'm new to the project, and wondered whether it was possible to get a list of unreferenced articles sorted in descending order of page views. Maybe one already exists and I just haven't found it yet!

The idea being that then one could choose to work on articles that are looked at a lot, and ensure that they are decently referenced. Thanks, and pleased to be part of the project. SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:02, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SunloungerFrog, welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for joining this WikiProject! You can use this tool to find unreferenced articles with page views. Just add a category, for example Category:Articles lacking sources from October 2024, to see the list of articles with views in that category. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:20, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah perfect! That is just what I wanted. Thanks @DreamRimmer SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SunloungerFrog - welcome and very glad to have you with us! We’re preparing for the November 2024 Backlog drive if you’d like to be involved. @DreamRimmer @ARandomName123 do you think we could do with a beta tester or two? Kazamzam (talk) 12:12, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kazamzam I am certainly looking forward to taking part in the November Backlog drive as much as I can. SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:57, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that this tool is broken at the moment, but it appears @SunloungerFrog: already filed a report on meta wiki. --Engineerchange (talk) 17:39, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Engineerchange @SunloungerFrog - much obliged, thank you! Kazamzam (talk) 19:37, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 2024

Quick update as we get ready for the November 2024 Backlog Drive, and happy 67th anniversary to Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth!^[1]

Headline: Smaller decrease in articles than usual. Nevertheless, we cleared 2821 articles! For yourself and your fellow editors, please clap.
Minutiae: For anyone interested in a more detailed breakdown of the numbers - average was 21.0 articles or a 5.40% decrease; median 15; mode 14.

Highlights: October 2008 is in the dustbin of history! November 2023 dropped by exactly 100 articles, from 407 to 307, and everyone's littlest friend, December 2023, further decreased from 73 to 48, a 34.25% decline.

Low-hanging fruit: Other than December '23, November 2008 is still loitering about with 45 articles left, dangling precariously like a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Give it a nudge.

High-hanging fruit: Everyone's favourite BFC (Big Friendly Category), December 2009, is a svelte 11,115 articles as of this writing - officially below the 90% completion point! The other high-hanging fruit are, still, the Frustrating Five (name open for revision): January 2013 (1,103), April 2019 (998; below 1,000 for the first time!), May 2019 (2,038), June 2019 (4,311), and September 2020 (1,365). This time, January 2012 had the lowest percentage of change between updates. Godspeed to anyone working on these.
Announcements: URA Drive #2 is in the works and we want YOU to volunteer as an co-organizer and/or reviewer of submissions! Comrade-in-arms @DreamRimmer is doing the noble work of running the bot to keep track of submissions using the hashtag #NOV24. We will begin 1 November 2024 and end 30 November 2024, with a proposed extra week for review where participants can earn extra points. The planning is active and ongoing so please feel free to get involved.
New challenge: two ties this update! January 2024 and February 2024 are 301 apiece and December 2015 and January 2016 are 323. This could be something to highlight for the drive if anyone finds this at all compelling (or wants a picture of my cat, Jellybean, in her special hat). As a personal challenge, I would like to see 2008 done by the end of the year, so we can have a backlog that's only, uh....16 years.

There will be a post-mortem for the drive - given the success of the last one, I'm personally hoping to hit 20,000 articles - and then regular updates will resume in January 2025. Thanks, as always, for the amazing work! Kazamzam (talk) 16:52, 4 October 2024 (UTC) Kazamzam (talk) 16:52, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2009). The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives, Legacy, and Historical Impact. Berlin: Springer. p. 1. ISBN 9780387848235. LCCN 2008935694.

Thanks, Kazamzam! That's us at 81,934 - perhaps we will get under 80,000 during the November backlog drive. It's heartening to see the numbers still going down. Boleyn (talk) 08:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

80,998! Boleyn (talk) 17:31, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General References question

Just checking: if an article has no in-text citations, but it *does* have a list of general references, then it doesn't count as unreferenced for this drive? Fluorescent Jellyfish (talk) 06:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is likely somewhat controversial, but I would be inclined to say: If it was already tagged as "Unreferenced" despite having the list of general references, and you actually add an inline citation, it should count. Cielquiparle (talk) 08:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree with that; an article having {{no footnotes}} is a separate issue from one being {{unreferenced}}, even if the former is erroneously tagged as the latter. When I came across such articles in the FEB24 drive I just corrected the tags.

The point of the drive is to cite information that is uncited, and if there is a non-inline reference, there's a good chance that it is backed up by a citation (though ofc ideally it should be made inline so it's possible to verify efficiently). novov talk edits 09:38, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the first sentence as a general rule.

I just think in the case of a Backlog Drive, we should reward good-faith addition of inline citations, rather than splitting hairs over whether an external URL or book title which already appeared on the page qualified as viable references or not, etc., etc. It gets slippery and is a buzzkill.

Most important thing is that in-line citations are added, referencing reliable sources...as we bring down the overall backlog by at least 10,000. Let's do it. Cielquiparle (talk) 13:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is what we did with the last drive. If an article had general references and the unreferenced tag, but no reflist or in-line citations, and the user added at least one in-line cite, it would count towards the drive. The sentiment was it's better this happens than just moving it to the {{no footnotes}} queue. As one of the users who did a lot of this type of thing last drive, it didn't boost my numbers by any means since there was still a lot of editing being done to add the in-line cites, as appropriate. --Engineerchange (talk) 21:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:DreamRimmer/DriveEditSummary.js

Hello everyone, I have created a user script called User:DreamRimmer/DriveEditSummary.js. This script adds a +NOV24 button right above the Save, Preview, and Changes buttons in the source editor. Clicking this button automatically inserts a preloaded edit summary with the #NOV24 hashtag. Please note that it only works in the source editor, not in the visual editor. I hope you find it useful! – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for this tool. Just did an extra page to try it. (Success!) Just a thought: "Adding reference(s) ... using" does make it sound like the script was used to add the references rather than the edit summary. Turtlecrown (talk) 03:45, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I have removed the script link. – DreamRimmer Alt (talk) 03:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Under 80,000!!!

79,959 - lovely to see it still declining. Boleyn (talk) 10:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

78,995!!! Boleyn (talk) 13:58, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

77,989!!! Boleyn (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should we consider posting these in the milestones section like we did in February? JTtheOG (talk) 21:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hoaxes at the November 2024 drive

Did you come across something unsourceable that looked like a hoax? Kamini Yacht Club, a 15+ years old article, is up for discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kamini Yacht Club. Sam Sailor 14:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't come across full hoaxes in the drive, but I've found false peak positions of songs such as at Do Me Wrong. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not tagged?

There are some unreferenced articles (see 1987 Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks season and many more), but they aren't tagged with the unreferenced maintenance tag. If I add references to them, will I receive points for that? TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TheBirdsShedTears: Yes, you will receive points. As stated in the rules, “Untagged, but unreferenced articles are also acceptable”. Cheers,ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:32, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sigcawu family

~~I've been grinding away at the articles from 2008 and everything remaining except for the following five articles is now on AfD:~~

~~- Gwebi'nkumbi Sigcawu~~

~~- Sigcawu kaSarili~~

~~- Daliza Sigcawu~~

~~- Ngangomhlaba Sigcawu~~

~~- Zwelidumile Sigcawu~~

I'm not sure if these ones should also be AfD'd - sourcing seems to be pretty sparse on the ground, but I'm wondering if it's a transliteration/spelling issue? They're notable figures and I can find oblique references to them here and there, and there are more recent figures in this royal family. So I'm not sure what the best way to proceed is here. Thoughts? Smallangryplanet (talk) 11:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Nevermind, this has now been resolved. :) Smallangryplanet (talk) 20:20, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We love to see it! @Smallangryplanet, just a note, can you be sure to post question like this on the talk page for the drive itself? That will hopefully help more participants see any issues as they pop up. Kazamzam (talk) 20:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kazamzam Oops, I thought this was the talk page for the drive itself! I think I got turned around because the "Discussion" tab on the drive links to this page, not the drive's talk. Is that correct or should I change it? Smallangryplanet (talk) 20:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Smallangryplanet - ah sorry for the confusion! The Discussion tab on the drive is the same one as on the main page so I'm hesitant to change it. @DreamRimmer, do you think we can change this temporarily? Kazamzam (talk) 20:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What about just adding (talk) to the drive tab? I'm not bold enough to change the template but made this draft to show what I mean. Turtlecrown (talk) 19:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why only inline citations?

Why is the drive only rewarding editors for adding inline citations? General references are a legitimate citation style according to policy, preferred by many for short articles (and preferred for everything on some sister projects, e.g. dewiki), and have the same result of removing the article from the "unreferenced" backlog. – Joe (talk) 09:38, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How else can we attribute specific statements to their source?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 10:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, with in-text or parenthetical citations. But more to the point, it is not a policy requirement that we attribute specific statements to their source except in limited circumstances. This is "WikiProject Unreferenced articles" not "WikiProject Articles with no footnotes". – Joe (talk) 10:23, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe - that's a great question and a very interesting point that I have wondered about myself. I have definitely added footnotes in addition to (and sometimes instead of) inline citations, but I do then add the 'no inline' clean up tag. The following are my personal thoughts and not necessary those of the project. Happy to discuss further and take this as feedback for the URA and future drives going forward!

Short answer, per WP:INTEGRITY and WP:GENREF: The point of an inline citation is to allow readers and other editors to see which part of the material is supported by the citation. The disadvantage of general references is that text–source integrity is lost, although this is sometimes mitigated if the article is very short and the general references is very direct. General references are frequently reworked by later editors into inline citations; it saves time to just do it now.

Longer answer: Looking over the WP:MINREF guidelines, I think the URA is holding up articles to a higher standard than might be strictly necessary by focusing on inline citations. And mulling it over in the pre-caffeine morning, I am largely fine with this. The guidelines note that "it is typical for editors to voluntarily exceed these minimum standards", and I'm pleased that we are going above and beyond with this drive. Editors both in and out of the project can help add citations to articles as they see fit but we are choosing to exceed that minimum and reward to that effort for this drive; there's no prescription against general references, in-text, or parenthetical citations. But more importantly (in my opinion) is the following statement: "any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source". Yes, general references and non-inline citations might be sufficient in some cases and maybe would solve a lot of headaches around tiny stubs of German streams and rivers, but I think we are a) holding ourselves as a project to a higher standard that is ultimately beneficial to the encyclopedia and b) mitigating the need for future work by providing inline citations to statements that will hold up when editors are inclined to delete statements or articles that are unreferenced or only ("only") have footnotes.

Beyond the perspective of the drive, because the URA will still be here with tens of thousands of articles when this is over, adding general references is quite common but from a clean-up perspective, it punts the article from "unreferenced" to "lacking inline citations" and this, given the existence and widespread use of that specific tag, seems to be considered insufficient by the community. I think many if not most of us are here to improve Wikipedia, not shuffle articles from our preferred category to someone else's. If we're going to improve the encyclopedia by cleaning up these articles, we should actually do that rather than shuffling things around and hoping no one notices the level of untidiness is actually unchanged.

There's more to say on this and doubtless other people will have different opinions but those are my two cents (or with inflation, 12 cents). Again, this is a great question and thank you for raising it. I hope we have some really excellent discussion as a result. Cheers, Kazamzam (talk) 13:10, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "shuffling things around" is an accurate description: you're moving something from one of our most pressing cleanup categories ({{unreferenced}}) to a less severe one ({{no footnotes}}). That is an improvement to the encyclopaedia. It's also not a given that the article with general references will or should be tagged with {{no footnotes}}: a stub with no quotes or potentially controversial claims, for example, will not benefit from inline citations unless and until it is expanded.

URA participants are of course welcome to pursue a higher standard than that required by policy or what a literal reading of the name of the project would imply. It just seems inefficient to me. One of the things I really like about this project is that it is tightly focused on one problem, rather than trying to 'tidy' everything about an article at once. – Joe (talk) 13:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog

74,999! Boleyn (talk) 15:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2009). The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives, Legacy, and Historical Impact. Berlin: Springer. p. 1. ISBN 9780387848235. LCCN 2008935694.

[1]