Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 24–March 2, 2013)
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Summary: This was the week the Oscars had their effect, with 13 of the top 25 entries connected to them in some way (14 if you count Abraham Lincoln). The Oscars claimed all the top five entries, and would have taken the top seven were it not for the still-globetrotting Harlem Shake internet craze (which took took three entries this week) and the currently controversial website amazon.com. The winners in all six major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress) were featured, with Best Actress winner Jennifer Lawrence taking the top spot, allowing her to finally claim her crown as Queen of Wikipedia. The Best Picture winner was represented twice; once for itself (Argo) and once for its human recipient (Ben Affleck). As to the rest, aside from perennial favorites (Helloooo, World War II) the new season of The Walking Dead remained popular, with two entries listed.
For the week of February 24–March 2, 2013, 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 - - Jennifer Lawrence 1,852,911 2 - - Daniel Day-Lewis 1,652,395 3 16 2 Argo (2012 film) 1,598,909 Won the Academy Award for Best Picture on February 24. 4 - - Seth MacFarlane 1,492,151 5 - - 85th Academy Awards 1,310,906 Held on February 24, 2013, it was the most watched since the 76th Academy Awards in 2004, with 42.40 million viewers. 6 4 2 Harlem Shake (meme) 1,070,898 The latest internet craze continues to rank very high, see also #9 7 - - Silver Linings Playbook 799,069 See #1. Jennifer Lawrence was the only winner among the film's 8 Oscar nominations. 8 7 2 Amazon.com 719,822 The popular online retailer's article has had a rise in page counts since February 13. 9 3 3 Harlem shake 644,565 This is only a brief disambiguation page to help people find Harlem Shake (meme), which is #6 this week. 10 - - Anne Hathaway 638,588 11 9 8 Facebook 598,346 A perennially favorite article. 12 11 3 The Walking Dead (TV series) 569,183 The American television series, currently airing in third season, is enjoying increasing popularity. 13 - - Ben Affleck 568,481 14 - - Nicki Minaj 558,097 American singer and rapper, Minaj last appeared on the Top 25 for the week of January 20-26. 15 - - Academy Award 534,433 Due to the popularity of most of the entries above. 16 8 2 Harlem shake (dance) 477,517 The article on this 1981 dance is popular this week due to the new Harlem Shake (meme), see #6 and #9. Down from 686,591 views last week. 17 18 3 Abraham Lincoln 450,814 18 - - Life of Pi 449,670 Though this article is actually the book article, the film (below at #25) won 4 Oscars at the 85th Academy Awards out of 11 nominations, the most of any film, including Best Director. (The others were Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score). 19 15 2 Deaths in 2013 440,889 The lists of deaths in the current year is always a quite popular article. 20 - - Christoph Waltz 435,405 21 22 2 World War II 434,797 Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010-12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) 22 20 3 The Walking Dead (season 3) 432,339 See #11 above. 23 - - Ang Lee 421,787 24 25 3 Google 420,514 A perennially popular article. 25 - - Life of Pi (film) 405,518 Won four Oscars at the 85th Academy Awards out of 11 nominations, the most of any film, including Best Director. (The others were Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score).
- 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). Notable removals this week: G-force (607,922 views; 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 this week), and therefore we have decided to remove it from the list as most likely caused by non-human views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.); Sherlock Holmes (880,640 views, 725,000 of which came in an unexplained spike on 24 February 2013); Cat anatomy (562,258 views, explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts); and Ernst Litfaß (562,192 views; also removed a few weeks ago, is having another unexplained spike in views). Litfaß (or Litfass) was the German inventor of Advertising columns. Whether the views are the work of a spambot with a sense of humour is unknown. The German Wikipedia version saw no view spike, as before.)
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 405,518. Last week: 351,862.
- Almosts: Pope Benedict XVI (#26, 402,178 views); Kai Po Che! (#27, 401,117 views; 2013 Hindi film).
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create list: [1]