Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-07-02/Traffic report

Traffic report

The Cup runneth over... and over.

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With Game of Thrones over for another year, the World Cup dominated yet again. And that is pretty much that. This list isn't likely to be particularly eventful until the Cup is won.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation for any exclusions.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of 15–21 June, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	2014 FIFA World Cup	2,526,115	With former winners England, Spain, Italy and Uruguay now out, and old stalwart Mexico denied a place in the quarter finals thanks to a Dutch goal at the literal last minute, this World Cup has been nothing if not surprising. And with Costa Rica coming out of nowhere to the shock and awe of everyone, the surprises are sure to keep coming.
2	FIFA World Cup	935,760	The broader article on the history of the competition may have been accessed by people looking for the long view, but in truth it was probably more to do with people looking for the more specific article above.
3	Transformers: Age of Extinction	770,945	Usually, when a big-shot director is tired of a franchise, the studio will offer him a juicy pay packet to stay on; Paramount gave Michael Bay an entire movie so he would agree to continue to prop up their tent-pole series, which is all the more vital since Marvel and Indiana Jones are now at Disney. The movie's 17% RT rating (even lower than for the much-reviled entry, Revenge of the Fallen) shows just how much commitment Bay brought to the project; that said, its $300 million worldwide opening (of which $100 million was from the US and $90 million, thanks to some shameless in-movie pandering, was from China) shows audiences don't really care.
4	Cristiano Ronaldo	504,713	2013's Golden Ball winner is a prime contender for the "best player on the planet" title. His popularity is such that he is on this list despite the fact that Portugal were kicked out at the first round after losing 4–0 to Germany.
5	Amazon.com	466,100	This article suddenly reappeared in the top 25 a few months ago after a long absence; it's always difficult to determine the reasons for the popularity of website articles (how many are simply misaimed clicks on the Google search list?) but there are at least two possibilities: first, it released its digital media player, Amazon Fire TV on April 2, and second, it is currently embroiled in a dispute with publisher Hachette that could decide whether book publishers even need to exist in the post-digital world.
6	Neymar	453,305	The 22-year-old wunderkind has scored four goals in the four matches Brazil have played this tournament, including one of the penalties that moves them past Chile to the quarter final.
7	Luis Suárez	449,362	The Liverpool forward had already earned the nickname "the vampire" for his peculiar habit of biting people during matches, but his latest bout of bloodthirst (against Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini) has proven particularly controversial, as the match ban he received for it was arguably responsible for Uruguay's exit from the World Cup.
8	2010 FIFA World Cup	427,400	The current World Cup has buoyed interest in the last one, with people doubtless looking for parallels, clues for upcoming matches, or omens.
9	Lionel Messi	425,487	The Argentine forward and captain of the national team is another contender for the title of "best footballer on the planet". FIFA certainly thinks so; he won the Golden Ball award three years in a row. He scored a goal in each of the games Argentina played in the group stage, making him a key element in the team's qualification for the knockout stage.
10	Marfan syndrome	411,191	The genetic disorder thought by some to have afflicted figures as diverse as Abraham Lincoln and the Pharaoh Akhenaten got into the news this week when Isaiah Austin, a former basketball player for the Baylor Bears, received an honorary NBA draft pick after being forced to end his career due to a diagnosis.