Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup

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Welcome to WikiProject: Unreferenced Article Cleanup!

Did you know that, as of 2007-02-14, there were over 48,000 articles in Category:All articles lacking sources? What I find even scarier is that this figure is just the tip of the iceberg! When I click Special:Random, I usually end up at an article with no sources, and no {{unreferenced}} tag, which mean that the article is not listed in the category!

Over the past few weeks I have successfully provided references for some previously unreferenced articles, which has lead me to create this project. I am hoping that by leaving a project banner on the talk page of articles we have cleaned up, others will follow suit and we can start to reel in those 48,000 articles!

Contents

[edit] Scope

This project is aimed at any articles lacking sources. This includes, but is not limited to, all articles in Category:All articles lacking sources.

It is recommended that editors focus on smaller, stub-class articles, rather than already established pieces. This has several advantages:

  • Providing references for a small article will encourage later stub-expanders to follow suit and cite their sources.
  • It provides an opportunity to expand stub articles as part of the process
  • It may take less than an hour to reference a stub article, whereas a larger article may take days.
  • Faster "turn-around times" are encouraging for the editor, help prevent burn-out, and are good for the project.

This is not to discourage editors from pursuing larger articles, but it may be a good idea to form a taskforce with several editors for such a project.

[edit] Goals

The current primary goal of this project is to stop Category:All articles lacking sources from growing! This means referencing articles faster than they are added to the category. We need all the help we can get!

[edit] Guidelines

See </Guidelines>

[edit] Status

Category: All articles 2007-05-04 s 2008-05-04
lacking sources 70611 126412
with unsourced statements 60679 108034

[edit] Suggested articles

Listed here are some articles which need references, and are suitable for a single editor to tackle. Why not try your hand at one of these? You may be surprised at how simple it can be, and it is a very satisfying task. Just remember to remove the unreferenced template from the article page and add the project template (below) to the talk page when you are done.

[edit] Project banner

 This article was provided with references by a volunteer or taskforce from WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup on [[{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}-{{subst:CURRENTDAY2}}]]. If you edit this page, please build on the good work by citing your sources.

This banner is used to signify that an article has been provided with references by a member of this project. Unlike traditional project banners, this banner is to placed on the talk page after the improvements have been made. This will hopefully encourage others to follow suit when editing the article, and perhaps even join the project!

Use the following code to place the banner at the top of the articles talk page:

{{WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup|date=YYYY-MM-DD}}

The date field is optional, but should be included. For the chronically lazy, you may copy and paste this code to automatically produce the template with the current date inserted:

{{Template:WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup|date={{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}-{{subst:CURRENTDAY2}}}}

[edit] Active members

Please sign your name here if you decide to help out!

  1. Qarnos 08:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  2. Douglike 15:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  3. SprintFinish1 15:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  4. Eagleplatinum 15:07, 04 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. DesertAngel 02:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  6. --Mozillaman 13:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  7. brian stormen 19:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  8. Pinkadelica 02:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  9. Travellingcari 04:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  10. Scapler (talk) 17:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Successes

The following articles have been improved by this project:

[edit] Related projects