The Top 25 Report
Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 3–9, 2013)
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For the week of February 3–9, 2013 the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Weeks Article Views Notes 1 – – Mary Leakey 2,723,265 2 – – Richard III of England 1,867,853 It was announced this week that the long missing remains of the former King of England, who died in 1485, had been positively identified. Even the article about Shakespeare's play Richard III saw a boost, appearing at #300 on the WP:5000 this week with 124,390 views.) 3 8 5 Ray Lewis 1,744,191 4 – – Colin Kaepernick 1,551,963 American football quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, who lost the Super Bowl. 5 – – Beyoncé Knowles 935,733 6 5 3 Super Bowl XLVII 877,696 Played on February 3, if you didn't notice the three entries above this one. Up from 476,406 views last week. 7 – – Jim Harbaugh 846,581 8 – – Chinese New Year 845,799 This most important of the traditional Chinese holidays fell on February 10 this year. 9 – – Moonshiners (TV series) 827,581 10 – – Illuminati 803,447 A power outage at the Super Bowl fueled internet speculation that somehow this secret society was to blame. Seriously. 11 – – Chris Kyle 776,084 A United States Navy SEAL and sniper, he was shot and killed on February 2. 12 – – Super Bowl 716,914 More Super Bowl traffic. Keep reading, this isn't the last of it, either. 13 – – John Harbaugh 712,845 Head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, and brother of #7 14 2 5 Facebook 706,371 Up from 609,629 views last week, a perennially favorite article. 15 – – Joe Flacco 702,822 16 – – Baltimore Ravens 688,597 This team won that game referenced above. 17 – – Valentine's Day 667,470 In anticipation of the annual holiday which falls on February 14. 18 4 5 G-force 595,224 Up from 505,963 views last week. The popularity of this article is a bit mystifying, possibly could be influenced by non-human views. Its popularity increased in June 2012 and has stayed that way. 19 – – Destiny's Child 568,418 20 – – List of Super Bowl champions 563,828 Related to the Super Bowl. 21 – – House of Cards (U.S. TV series) 534,097 A new political drama series starring Kevin Spacey, all 13 episodes of the first season were released on February 1. 22 3 2 Vishwaroopam 515,618 23 – – Michael Oher 485,921 American football player for the Baltimore Ravens, also known for the movie (and book) The Blind Side based on his story. 24 – – My Cousin Vinny 456,189 Most of the views for this 1992 American comedy film came on February 4, for unclear reasons. 25 – – San Francisco 49ers 430,661 That's 14 of the Top 25 related to the Super Bowl this week (assuming you count the Illuminati, who are probably the cause of it.)
- Compared to last week, traffic in the Top 25 articles was very high. Last week's #1, Royal Rumble (2013), would only have been #16 this week.
- Almosts: Super Bowl related articles also appear below the Top 25, including List of Super Bowl halftime shows (#28, 382,463 views) and Bar Refaeli (#37, 322,017, who appeared in a "controversial" Super Bowl commercial).
- 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). One notable removal this week: Ernst Litfaß (919,854 views), with an unexplained massive spike in views from Feb. 1–8. 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.
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create list: [1]