Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (May 18 to 24 2014) edit
← Last week's report – Next week's Report →
Summary: In the US, Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer, and summer is definitely on people's minds this week, with summer films Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past, the apparently designated summer song "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea and anticipation building for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in June. The Indian general election is fading only slowly, understandably as its effects have yet to be fully felt.
For the week of May 18 to 24, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:
Rank Last Wks Article Class Views Image Notes 1 - - Mary Anning 
1,750,729 
She sells seashells by the seashore. She was Mary Anning, who not only found and sold fossil seashells but also identified the first ichthyosaur (at age 12!) and the first plesiosaur. A victim of the gender and class prejudice of her time, she didn't get the recognition she deserved until after her death; an oversight Wikipedia viewers have gone some way to correcting thanks to a birthday Google Doodle on 21 May. 2 5 2 Godzilla (2014 film) 
797,814 
It seems that Hollywood's trust in Gareth Edwards, director of the microbudget scifi flick Monsters, was well placed, as his take on the Godzilla mythos has emulated its eponymous hero, stomping the box office to dust with $93 million in three days. Critics seem to like the movie too; it's RT rating is currently 73%. Personally, I had issues with it, but then, what do I know? 3 - - Rubik's Cube
766,499 
Nothing is more likely to generate Wikipedia views than an interactive Google Doodle, and to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the ingenious puzzler, Google effectively rendered it irrelevant by constructing a fully solvable virtual version and releasing it online for everyone to try. 4 - - Steve Wozniak
733,241 
The co-founder of Apple Computer got a massive one-day spike on 18 May, the same day he published an open letter to the FCC demanding they retain net neutrality in the US. I'm usually suspicious of 1-day spikes with no tail-off, but this instance is at least explicable. 5 5 16 Amazon.com
656,462 
This article suddenly reappeared in the top 25 after a long absence, but at least it has a reason: Amazon Fire TV; a digital streaming device to watch online content on a HDTV. How it distinguishes itself from the three or four other such devices currently on the market is a matter of some dispute. 6 9 2 Narendra Modi
544,033 
Thanks to an effective ad campaign and a sound economic record as Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi led his Hindu nationalist BJP to victory with a stomping 282 (52%) seats. A Hindu nationalist and a member of the RSS, Modi is considered a controversial politician and debate still surrounds the extent of his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots during his tenure as Chief Minister. The Indian National Congress, the party that has mostly led India since its independence, came in second with 44 seats, its worst showing in any election in India's history. 7 11 30 Game of Thrones
507,708 
New seasons of this immensely popular show always draw people to Wikipedia. 8 - 2 Memorial Day 
456,537 
The last Sunday in May (that's May 26 this year), the day that the United States chose to honour its war dead, is perhaps better known as the traditional beginning of US summer vacation, and is thus eagerly anticipated by millions of people too young to serve but old enough to stand in line for action movies. 9 14 8 Game of Thrones (season 4)
455,733 This is the page with the plot synopses for each episode. 10 - 2 Iggy Azalea
432,512 The Australian/American rapper released her debut album, The New Classic on 21 April, but probably re-entered the top list due to an earpiece malfunction during a performance of her single "Fancy" on Dancing With The Stars 11 15 7 List of Game of Thrones episodes 
411,410 The episode list is probably used to look up air dates. 12 - - X-Men (film series) 
408,056 
X-Men: Days of Future Past, Bryan Singer's cross-generational collaboration uniting his original cast of fogies with their younger selves introduced in X-Men: First Class, earned $100 million in its first weekend, but seems to have garnered interest in nearly every X-Men-centric topic except itself. 13 17 2 Godzilla
396,934 
The man himself (or monster, dinosaur, radioactive Jurassic aquatic reptile, rubber suit, whatever he is) and his 60-year-legacy of destructive romping got queried in the week of his American big-screen debut (no, we're not mentioning that). 14 - 2 Bonnie and Clyde
385,119 
The killing-and-robbing duo got a spike of interest on the anniversary of their hail-of-bullets-induced deaths on the 24th of May. 15 16 61 Deaths in 2014
375,900 
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. 16 19 2 2014 FIFA World Cup
351,537 
It took 29 months and 820 qualifying matches involving 207 national teams representing more than 99 percent of the world's population, but we now have the final 32, complete with the traditional first timers (Bosnia), the heavy favourites (five-time winners and hosts Brazil), dark horses (Honduras) European stalwarts (Germany, Spain, England, Italy, France) and African hopefuls (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon). Now all that remains is to see whether Brazil can get its act together and finish construction in time for the games' launch on 12 June. And if they can pull that off, they may even be able to explain why they built a 42,000-seat stadium in the middle of the Amazon jungle. 17 18 71 Facebook
333,580 
A perennially popular article. 18 23 42 List of Bollywood films of 2014
291,403 
An established staple of the top 25 returns. 19 - - 2014 in film
286,551 
A new entry for the list, probably in preparation for the summer movie season. 20 - - Apocalypse (comics)
283,000 The towering, 5000-year-old uber-mutant and de facto "Big Bad" of the X-Men universe got a now-traditional post-credits cameo in preparation for his cinematic debut in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse. 21 - - Genghis Khan
253,647 
The founder of the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever known got a Reddit thread this week after one person learned that he responded to a city governor's execution of his trading envoys by storming his city with 200,000 men and pouring molten silver into his mouth and eyes. And you thought he was all about cuddly bunnies and hugging puppies, didn't you? 22 - 2 Lionel Messi
247,816 
The FC Barcelona forward and captain of the Argentinian national football team, widely touted as the best current player of his sport in the world, appeared in a music video with Shakira this week. 23 10 3 Indian general election, 2014
238,187 After 1 sixth of the world's population initiates the biggest political shakeup of their country in decades, do not expect it to fade quickly. 24 - 15 Wikipedia
236,884 
Wikipedia returns to its own Top 25. 25 - - Michael Jace 
236,702 The former star of The Shield was arrested on 19 May on charges of having fatally shot his wife, April Jace.
.JPG)
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). Please keep in mind that the explanations given for these articles' popularity are, fundamentally, guesses. Just because I can't find a reason for an article to be included doesn't mean there isn't one; conversely, just because a plausible reason is found for a view spike, that doesn't mean it wasn't due to a bot.
- There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the top 25 for no determined reason, and have been excluded as likely being due to automated views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
- IPv6: I have to face facts; I allowed this into the top 25 for months as it is the kind of issue that would appeal to web denizens (ala Bitcoin) but its insane popularity is just too high explain by human interest alone. It's getting help.
- Ddd: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
- History of Bălţi: There is simply no logical way to explain the sudden rise of this hyper-obscure article except as the result of a traffic-checking botnet, ala cat anatomy
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Lycos: The geriatric web portal is back.
- Specific exclusions this week:
- Computer virus: artificial-looking flat-topped mesa of views for this rather generic topic.
- Charles Durning: Kermit the Frog's onetime nemesis got a sudden one-day spike on 19 May
- Copyright Alert System: There are many reasons computer-centric people might have for wanting to know about this, but its status hasn't changed since last year and its weird cactus-like spike seems artificial.
- Checker shadow illusion: another weird spike; really, this should be a Reddit thread. Why it isn't I have no idea.