Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 14 – April 20 2013)
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Summary: It was a dark week. In the wake of the attacks on Boston, users sought out background to make sense of an apparently senseless tragedy. From the war-torn region from which both the (suspected) bombers hailed to the string of apparently unrelated ricin attacks that fell in the same few days, Wikipedia was a port of call for those seeking information. In lighter news, the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 continued to spark interest in the pioneering sportsman, while Tom Cruise's new movie was listed.
For the week of April 14 to 20, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Views Notes 1 – – Chechnya 1,816,643 2 – – Leonhard Euler 1,569,643 3 - - 2013 Boston Marathon bombings 1,316,401 4 - - Ricin 1,156,053 5 1 2 Margaret Thatcher 683,444 6 - - 420 (cannabis culture) 647,578 7 11 - Oblivion (2013 film) 565,359 Tom Cruise proved he still has drawing power when his post-apocalyptic scifi thriller opened top of the weekend with $37.05 million. 8 - - Defiance (TV series) 529,849 Syfy's science-fiction/Western/alien invasion mashup piqued much interest despite "meh" reviews. 9 5 7 Game of Thrones 511,109 This epic fantasy TV series launched its third season on March 31, and has seen its ratings almost double on its premiere episode. 10 7 15 Facebook 469,753 A perennially popular article. 11 9 25 Deaths in 2013 492,897 The lists of deaths in the current year is always a quite popular article. 12 - - Oklahoma City bombing 437,299 13 - - Adam Scott (golfer) 419,980 14 – – Boston Marathon 411,370 15 - - Marcus Licinius Crassus 406,980 16 - - Daft Punk 399,948 17 7 Google 393,836 A perennially popular article 18 2 Jackie Robinson 381,448 19 Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act 367,100 Otherwise known as CISPA, this hugely controversial act passed the US Congress with little comment from the media, despite its potentially dramatic impact on personal privacy. 20 13 27 World War II 403,144 Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) 21 12 2 Game of Thrones (season 3) 357,290 see #10 above 22 Macklemore 350,310 23 – - Spartacus 344,604 24 - - Chechen people 341,598 25 - - Chi Cheng (musician) 341,386
- 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:
- G-force; this has been in the Top 25 since the list was started at the beginning of the year. The continuing popularity of this article, which jumped in June 2012, has been without explanation. Articles on popular scientific concepts get nowhere this level of viewing based on our analysis to date, e.g., Gravitation (49,516 views from March 3–9), and therefore we have decided to remove it from the list as most likely caused by non-human views.
- Cat anatomy; explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts
Specific removals this week (those articles for which no reason for any sudden popularity could be located):
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 341,598. Last week:
- Almosts: YouTube (339,468 views); Waco siege (337,755 views); List of Game of Thrones episodes (321,612 views)
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create list: [1]