[Wikimedia-l] Suggestion to add sources to millions of (tagged) unsourced articles

[Rui Correia]

Wikipedians have proven to be quite adept at creating scripts, software,
bots etc to automate all kinds of things.

We are now in a situation where anything added - a new article of
information added to an existing article - immediately gets challenged if
it has no sources, and often the sources get challenged.

That's fair enough, it goes to the credibility of the project and the
information we make available.

However, at the same time, that are millions of older articles that 'got
away'  without or with few sources when they were created. Some have since
been tagged as being "without sources".

SUGGESTION:

Can't someone create something that will identify ACTIVE editors who at one
point contributed significantly to each of those unsourced articles and
alert them to see if they would show interest in going back and adding a
few sources? I am working from the premise that someone who constribute
more than a casual correction of a typo etc has some affinity with the
subject and would be the most indicated person to quickly find valid
sources.

I included "(tagged)" in the subject line. This, because with my 'limited'
knowledge, I presume that it would be easier for such would-be mechanism
to pick out articles tagged as having no sources. At the same time, I
recognise that it would not be impossible for the software or whatever to
scan the whole article looking for surces and if none, add it a basket of
unsourced articles.

 Also, I remember reading about a bot created by the Ducth WP that has
created about half of the articles in the Swedish WP. It apparently has -
among aother things - the ability to find valid sources.

Best regards,

Rui
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Rui Correia
Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant
Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant

Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186
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