Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/October 19 to 25, 2014

Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 19 to 25, 2014) edit

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Summary: Ebola virus disease leads the Report for the fourth straight week. The rest of the list is primarily a mix of pop culture topics, including movie Avengers: Age of Ultron (#4) whose trailer was leaked early, and the death of Oscar de la Renta (#7). A BuzzFeed article on creepy Wikipedia articles, no doubt well-timed with Halloween (#9) around the corner, was responsible for three articles in the Top 25, including June and Jennifer Gibbons (#10), Taman Shud Case (#17), Joyce Vincent (#25). And the internet-run-amok controversy of Gamergate cracked the Top 25 for the first time at #19.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of October 19 to 25, 2014, 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 Ebola virus disease   1,695,567
 
Though not as phenomenally popular as last week's 8.2 million views, this article still had more than enough views at almost 1.7 million to be the most viewed article for the fourth straight week. If you want to keep track of recent developments, check out 2014 Ebola virus disease epidemic timeline. Notable recent events included an announcement by the World Health Organization on 20 October that Nigeria has successfully defeated its recent breakout; the first confirmed case in Mali, one of the poorest nations in the world and quite ill-equipped to address health emergencies, occurred on 23 October; and a fourth case in the United States was diagnosed, this time a doctor recently returned to New York City from a trip to Guinea to treat Ebola patients. Through 23 October, WHO has reported 4,922 official Ebola deaths.

Note: includes views from the Ebola redirect page.

2 Diwali   1,325,621
 
The Hindu festival of light, which draws attention to the inner light beyond the material body, the Atman, occurred this week.
3 Ultron   1,263,228
 
Ultron, a comic book villain in the Marvel Comics family, will be the subject of the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron (#4), and played by James Spader (pictured). A week-early leak of the film's trailer propelled both articles into our Top 10. Marvel cheekily blamed Hydra, a fictional terrorist group in the Marvel universe, for the leak. One could question whether the leak was intentional and has already been added to the resume of some marketing guy at Marvel Studios.
4 Avengers: Age of Ultron   741,451
 
See #3. Scarlett Johansson (pictured) is another of the many stars in the film, which will be released in North America on 1 May 2015.
5 Happy New Year (2014 film)   733,860
 
This 2014 Bollywood film starring Shahrukh Khan (pictured) stormed the Indian box office on Diwali weekend. The comedic caper movie tells the story of a motley crew entering a world dance competition to get close to a valuable trove of diamonds.
6 American Horror Story: Freak Show   636,016
 
The fourth season of the American Horror Story series debuted on 8 October, and is in the Top 10 for the third straight week.
7 Oscar de la Renta   632,772
 
The world-renowned fashion designer died on 20 October at his home in Connecticut. In 2007, subsequent to being diagnosed with cancer, De la Renta remarked "The only realities in life are that you are born, and that you die. We always think we are going to live forever. The dying aspect we will never accept." Most recently, de la Renta designed the wedding dress which Amal Clooney wore.
8 Facebook   617,221
 
A perennially popular article. On 23 October, Facebook launched a separate new app called "Rooms," which is essentially an anonymous chat room.
9 Halloween   608,007
 
Unlike most other holidays, Halloween seems to creep into the Top 25 well in advance of its appointed date. It just barely missed making the Top 25 last week (#27).
10 June and Jennifer Gibbons   605,331
 
On 22 October, BuzzFeed published the listicle "21 Wikipedia Pages That Will Make It Impossible For You To Sleep" which proved quite popular. June and Jennifer Gibbons was listed at #9 in the article, but directed the most traffic to Wikipedia among the bunch, probably because the list entry was practically clickbait: "The entire backstory and what happens (to the twins) after they decide to go through with the sacrifice (of one of them) is fascinating." This report won't tell you want happened to June and Jennifer Gibbons either, you'll have to read June and Jennifer Gibbons to find out what happened to June and Jennifer Gibbons, but you will be shocked and amazed when you do click on it. But we will tell you that the BuzzFeed article was also successful enough to put Taman Shud Case at #17 and Joyce Vincent at #25 in the Top 25.
11 The Walking Dead (TV series)   601,566
 
The show's fifth season premièred on 12 October. Down from 922,674 views last week.
12 Peyton Manning   593,099
 
This accomplished American football quarterback became the NFL's all-time leader in passing touchdowns on 19 October, with 509, bypassing Brett Favre.
13 Fury (2014 film)   572,493
 
This World War II-set action film starring Brad Pitt (pictured) was released on 17 October. It topped the American box office on its opening weekend.
14 Deaths in 2014   531,166
 
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. Its mobile views remain lower than most entries on the Top 25, at 22.17%.
15 Gotham (TV series)   525,844
 
This televisual reboot of the Batman franchise debuted on 22 September 2014, and is in the Top 25 for a fifth straight week.
16 Renée Zellweger   524,577
 
Our culture obsessed with youthful female beauty became briefly obsessed with this actress when she appeared at the 21st-annual Elle Magazine Women in Hollywood Awards on 20 October looking quite a bit different in her face, leading to speculations about cosmetic surgery.
17 Taman Shud Case   605,331
 
See #10, but BuzzFeed only recommends reading this article to combat sleepiness.
18 Jerry Maren   664,389
 
Reddit noted this week that Maren is the last surviving cast member of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
19 Gamergate controversy   445,654
 
It took months, but GamerGate has finally generated enough head-scratching searches to allow this article to enter the Top 25. According to the current version of this article, GamerGate "concerns ingrained issues of sexism and misogyny in the gaming community, and journalistic ethics in the online gaming press, particularly conflicts of interest between video game journalists and developers." How helpful! In reality, in the humble opinion of this Report author, Gamergate is the latest Internet Game of Trolls, where the origins of a small controversy gets largely lost among all the fighting and opportunists who swoop in on either side. The worst of the internet threats against females have been very unfortunate, but are also a part of the trolling. Be happy you don't live in a country with Ebola or malaria, you trolls.
20 Google   442,160
 
Always a fairly popular article.
21 Israel Kamakawiwoʻole   435,958 Reddit noted that 10,000 people attended the funeral of this beloved Hawaiian musician in 1997. The fact that he was the singer of the unique Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World medley, and that he was long dead, seemed to be the real news to many Redditors.
22 Gone Girl (film)   419,918
 
This 2014 American mystery film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike (both pictured at left) and directed by David Fincher hangs on for a fourth straight week in the Top 25.
23 The Flash (2014 TV series)   419,909
 
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. Third straight week in the Top 25.
24 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant   408,991
 
The exploits of ISIL are dropping a bit in the news, though fighting continues.
25 Joyce Vincent   408,117 See #10, but BuzzFeed only recommends reading this article to combat sleepiness.

Notes: From the raw WP:5000, it took 255,150 views to make the Top 100 raw entries this week (John Wick (film)). Stephen Hawking joined Facebook and hit #114, while Monica Lewinsky joined Twitter and made #118. The 2014 World Series (#466) was the last article to break 100,000 views; the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (#1671) last to break 50,000; and Dark matter (26,824 views) closed out the list at #5000.

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). There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the raw top 25 for no determined reason, and have been excluded as likely being due to 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 exclusions this week:

  • Website: Excluded last week, and views still seem odd this week, though mobile fraction went from 97% to 73%. No corresponding popularity on German or French Wikipedias.
  • The Book of Life (2014 film) - Only 3.52% mobile views among a whopping 2.065 million views, and most of them occurred on one or two days, not typical at all of a recent film release.