The Top 25 Report
Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 28 to August 3, 2013)
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Summary: It's crickets and tumbleweeds this week, as the top 25 sees both its lowest-viewed top entry and its lowest viewed bottom entry since we began this at the start of the year. If Wikipedia were selling anything, we'd be having a fire sale by now. By the way, for those wondering why this page is sometimes late, the reason is that occasionally there are a larger than normal number of articles in the top 25 for reasons I can't determine, and I am awaiting a second opinion on their inclusion before I throw them out. If you wish to contribute, please visit the talk page. See the list of exclusions below for examples this week.
For the week of July 28 August 3, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Class Views Image Notes 1 7 30 Facebook 
693,172 
A perennially popular article, it probably finished at number one by accident, given the low traffic. 2 - - Maria Mitchell 
677,707 
The great astronomer and comet-discoverer got a Google Doodle for her birthday on August 1. 3 9 2 The Wolverine (film) 
563,231 
The second attempt to give X-Men fan-favourite Wolverine his own franchise appears to be doing far better than the first, taking $21 million in its first day. 4 - - Kidd Kraddick
508,829 
The US radio personality got a send off from Wikipedians when he died on July 27. 5 - - Robin Thicke
503,901 
The Blue-eyed soul singer and son of Alan Thicke (!) released his latest album, Blurred Lines, in the US on July 30. 6 17 3 Orange Is the New Black
411,966 
The women-in-prison TV series premiered in its entirety on Netflix on 11 July. 7 15 40 Deaths in 2013 List 410,828 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 8 21 28 Google 
373,400 
A perennially popular article. 9 19 11 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 372,664 
An established staple of the top 25. 10 - - Down Syndrome
349,802 
The genetic disorder shot up in views this week after news went global that epigenetic experiments may have revealed a possible treatment. 11 - - 2011 San Fernando massacre
338,814 
The mass murder of 193 people in Mexico by Los Zetas drug cartel, under the command of Miguel Trevino Morales, got a boost thanks to a thread on Reddit. 12 8 3 The Conjuring (film)
317,162 
James Wan's latest ghost story (reportedly based on true events, take that as you will) stormed the US, taking $70 million in its first week. 13 - - Breaking Bad
316,238 
The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series begins on August 11. 14 - - Telangana
276,322 
The controversial new state in India, planned to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh 15 - - Wolverine (comics)
271,493 
The gruff Canadian superhero with the iconic claws is of interest this week thanks to his hit movie (see #3 above) 16 25 39 World War II
268,957 
Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) Interestingly, despite rising eight slots, its view count this week is actually lower. 17 12 4 Pacific Rim (film)
266,341 Guillermo del Toro's $190-million anime-inspired monsters vs. robots slugfest is not tracking well with the American mainstream, and now seems unlikely to crack $100 million domestically, but remains a strong talking point among Wikipedian cineastes. 18 - 5 Edward Snowden
252,280 
The story of the international cause célèbre who blew the whistle on the NSA's domestic spying program becomes more gripping by the day. Denied a passport by the US government, he presumably remains trapped in Terminal E of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, possibly seeking asylum in Venezuela. Polls suggest Americans are still fairly divided on whether to treat this man as a hero or a traitor, which will only stimulate more debate and, likely, more Wikipedia views in future. 19 - 6 Attack on Titan
251,736 
This anime series has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere. Interest may have recently been spiked by a series of badly-translated death threats against the show's creator, supposedly for basing a character on the series on a General in the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII. Or maybe because it's about giant monsters and Pacific Rim just came out. 20 - - Reza Aslan
248,167 
The acclaimed scholar of religion saw his latest book shoot to the top of the bestseller list after a particularly commanding performance during a Fox News interview circulated on the Internet as "the worst interview Fox News has ever done". 21 - - Paula Patton 
243,737 
Actress who probably got into the top 25 on the strength of her appearance in the upcoming film 2 Guns and being the wife of Robin Thicke (see #5 above) 22 - - George Stinney
235,977 
The youngest person ever to be executed in the United States got in due to a Reddit thread. The 14-year-old's confession was reportedly coerced with ice-cream. 23 - 20 Game of Thrones
232,768 
People just can't get enough of this show, even when it hasn't been on air for a month. 24 - 37 YouTube
231,602 
Another perennially popular article 25 - - Christian Benítez
230,529 
The Ecuadorian forward for the Qatari Stars League died of a heart attack on July 29 aged only 27
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- This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
- Cat anatomy: A spammer with a sense of humour? Lazy med students looking for quick info on cat dissections? Or a REALLY confused adware bot for Friskies? The debate still rages as to why this article continues to rank so highly.
- G: This, or alternately G-force, frequently appears in the top 25. It is probably due to people typing "G" for "Google" in Google Chrome's search bar and hastily clicking "enter".
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- MONO (Shigeo Tamaru Album) and Chikako Watanabe: Articles related to the Japanese band NaNa have been popping into the Top 25 for weeks with no determined rationale. There may be one. We haven't found it.
- Specific removals this week (those for whom no explanation for their popularity could be found):
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 230,529. Last week: 284,103
- Almosts: Milkha Singh (219,555 views); Sailor Uranus (216,851 views); 2013 in film (216,077 views).
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.