Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 19 to 25, 2015) edit
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Bruce, Nessie, and genocide: Though the continued predominance of movies, TV, and sports noted in last week's report largely continues, three additional topics joined the Top 10 this week. Bruce Jenner's long-awaited personal announcement that he considers himself a trans woman was made in a highly publicized American television interview on April 24, and easily made #2 on this week's report. The Loch Ness Monster was the subject of a Google Doodle celebrating the 81st anniversary of the iconic hoaxed photograph of the legendary beast, putting Nessie into the Top 25 Report for the first time. And much more sobering, but also in the Top 25 for the first time, is the Armenian Genocide (#10), which commenced 100 years ago this week. Farther down the list, it is worth noting that Adolf Hitler (#23) also appears in the Top 25 for the first time. While World War II related topics often make this Report, for some reason Hitler himself has not since this Report's debut in January 2013.
As prepared by Milowent, for the week of April 19 to 25, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Avengers: Age of Ultron 
1,725,099 
Up from #16 and 541,147 views last week, the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe premiered in Hollywood on April 13. In any other year, the sequel to the billion-grossing Avengers would be the film to beat at the box office, but with the success of Furious 7, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ahead, no one is taking bets on who will come out on top. The film opens in wide release on May 1. 2 Bruce Jenner
1,606,878 
The former track and field Olympian and current honorary Kardashian got into the news this week. Jenner previously appeared on the Top 25 for two weeks in February, but his article would not include what the tabloids were reporting until Jenner said it himself, which he did in an April 24 interview on American television with Diane Saywer – that he is a trans woman. His gender transition will be the subject of an eight-part documentary series starting July 2015. 3 420 (cannabis culture) 
1,240,611 
This curious "holiday", which falls on April 20 (for obvious reasons) refers to the mysterious number 420 and its long link to marijuana usage. While it may not quite be to cannabis what Oktoberfest is to beer, it no doubt aspires to be. And this year it placed at #3 for the week, up from #5 last year. And, for the very obvious joke, we note the article is far too laid back to seek to improve any further from Start Class. 4 Furious 7 
966,738 
Down from #2 last week and 1.36 million views, but still going strong. "Fast and furious" pretty much sums up the seventh instalment of this long-running series. Its worldwide gross of as of April 26 is now $1.322 billion. It has also become the third film in history to earn over $1 billion in "overseas" sales, after Avatar and Titanic. 5 Daredevil (TV series)
774,553 
The first of four projects started as part of a deal between Marvel Studios and Netflix, this TV series was released in its entirety on the service on April 10. It's impossible to gauge the public response to this ("ratings" don't really have meaning when applied to Netflix shows) but the critical response has been ecstatic (Rotten Tomatoes currently rates it at 97%) and if its Wikipedia position is anything to go by, the public appear to have taken to it too. Down from #1 and 1.49 million views last week. 6 Loch Ness Monster
764,390 
A Google Doodle on April 21 celebrated the 81st anniversary of the 1934 hoaxed "Surgeon's Photograph" of the legendary Scottish lake monster. Google has also helpfully put [Ness on Street View] so you can search for her yourself. A review of the past three weeks of the WP:5000 data shows that Nessie is normally submerged below our Top 5000 weekly articles. This is her debut in the Top 25. 7 Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao
745,655 
This long-anticipated (the article was created in July 2013!) boxing match between Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (pictured) and Manny Pacquiao, the latest fight to be dubbed the Fight of the Century, will be held on May 2 in Las Vegas. 8 Paul Walker
692,364 
Furious 7 will be the last, and definitely biggest, film of Paul Walker's career, and was completed despite his tragic death midway through production. How much of the film's current record grosses was in memoriam to a fallen star is impossible to say. 9 Manny Pacquiao
637,686 
See #7. And Mr. Mayweather is #11. 10 Armenian Genocide
631,960 
The 100th anniversary of the start of the systematic killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government probably generated more concentrated press coverage of this tragic event than ever seen before. Much of the current political debate focuses on the refusal of Turkey, and others, to recognize the term "genocide" as an accurate description for the event. 11 Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
623,570 See #7. 12 Gallipoli Campaign 
533,175 
The 100th anniversary of the commencement of this World War I campaign was also recognized this week. The date of the landing of April 25 is also celebrated as Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand. 13 Game of Thrones (season 5)
532,813 
And it's baa-aack, for yet another week. The TV show that has become synonymous with the Top 25 Report aired its season première on April 12, to record ratings. I am not the world's greatest fan of Game of Thrones, but I swear, even if you thought it was televisual swill, after curating this list for three years solid you'd have the dadadadaDUM! dadadadaDUM! dadadadaDUM! crashing around your skull too. 14 Deaths in 2015 
524,240 
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died. 15 Facebook
518,667 
A perennially popular article. 16 Game of Thrones
512,189 See #13. 17 The Fast and the Furious
442,404 See #4. 18 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
438,244 
This superhero film directed by Zack Snyder (pictured) won't be released until March 2016. The leak of a teaser trailer on April 17 (originally scheduled to be released three days later, then officially released shortly after the leak) brought some attention. 19 Daredevil (Marvel Comics)
428,383 
Stan Lee's blind vigilante is on TV now (see #5). 20 The Flash (2014 TV series)
427,859 
This spinoff from the hit series Arrow marks DC Comics' second attempt to create a TV universe, after the late and much lamented DC Animated Universe. 21 United States
411,318 
This article is often just outside the Top 25, but only occasionally makes it. But so much of the world's pop culture is driven by the United States that's its difficult to simply search "Top 25 Report" and "United States" to find the last time it made the Report, and cut and paste it in once again. Similarly, it is usually difficult to determine why this article sometimes rises into the Top 25. Stats.grok.se shows more views on April 21 than usual. I'm afraid it could be 420 (cannabis culture) (#3), as views for big events related to the United States often peak the day after the event, since the U.S.'s day is late on the UTC cycle. 22 Google
388,019 
Always a fairly popular article. 23 Adolf Hitler
385,548 
A spike in views on his 126th birthday (April 20, 1889) means that Hitler joins the Loch Ness Monster (#6) and Armenian Genocide (#10) in appearing in the Top 25 report for the first time. This Report only began in January 2013, but it seems worth noting when subjects which are part of the world's presumed collective knowledge officially appear here for the first time. 24 Star Wars: The Force Awakens
377,519 
The second trailer for the upcoming and slaveringly awaited Star Wars sequel offered fans a glimpse of Han Solo and Chewbacca when it was recently released. 25 Kylie Jenner
375,685 The youngest biological daughter of Bruce Jenner (#2) joins Adolf Hitler (#23) et al. for her first appearance in the Top 25 report. Interestingly, Wikipedia commons has a Kim Kardashian by year category, but no photos of Kylie.
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Exclusions edit
- This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (2% or less) or almost all mobile views (95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
- Specific note: Liberland had 4.6 million views, but with only 1.52% mobile views it is unfortunately excluded, as non-human views clearly intervened to pollute the true popularity of this interesting topic. Liberland is a disputed parcel of land on the west back of the Danube river between Croatia and Serbia, which was declared a micronation earlier in the month by Czech rabble-rouser Vít Jedlička.
- Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.