Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 25 to 31, 2013)
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Summary: A news-heavy week offers some insight, perhaps, into humanity's priorities: Barack Obama's contemplating entering the Syrian Civil War and the anniversary of the March on Washington share space with Miley Cyrus's public pushing of her posterior and Robin Thicke's apparent extramarital groping, with the highest interest directed towards the offending bottom.
For the week of August 25 - 31, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Class Views Image Notes 1 - - Twerking 
1,264,178 Apparently, girls waggling their bottoms onstage now has a word. Or at least one fit for the OED. And a Wikipedia article. You'd think we'd have had one a while ago, given what a common phenomenon it is, but I suppose words are as they are needed, and boy, Miley, did you make this one needed. 2 - 3 Robin Thicke 
855,701 
The last time the Blue-eyed soul singer and son of Alan Thicke (!) was on this list, it was because he'd just released his latest album; now he's back, with triple the views, both for his role in Miley's routine, and for his hand straying too far over the anatomy of a pretty clubgoer. 3 - - Miley Cyrus 
826,479 
The former teenybopper graduated into adulthood in the manner customary to her profession: doing something in public to offend morally conservative people. The heightened publicity has secured her career for the immediate future at least. 4 2 34 Facebook
563,381 
A perennially popular article 5 4 4 Breaking Bad
561,320 
The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11. 6 - - Syria
560,861 
The next potential Middle Eastern country in which the USA might embroil itself has, unsurprisingly, become a topic of interest this week. 7 - - Białowieża Forest
390,642 
This ancient forest of centuries-old oaks and European bison between Poland and Belarus stimulated a Reddit discussion on August 28. 8 8 44 Deaths in 2013 List 372,873 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 9 - - I Have a Dream
372,170 
The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's rhetorical masterpiece at the March on Washington on August 28 stimulated much public discussion about its legacy and effects. 10 - - Martin Luther King, Jr. 
354,119 Of course, the anniversary also drew attention to the man himself. 11 9 15 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 349,011 
An established staple of the top 25. 12 12 32 Google
343,226 
A perennially popular article. 13 - - Eminem
336,298 
The rapper released his latest single, "Berzerk", on August 27. 14 - 2 Paula Patton
334,612 
Robin Thicke's wife was of course a focus of public attention as her husband's desires appeared to wander. 15 5 4 Chennai Express
334,560 This Bollywood action-romance has broken records at the Indian box office, becoming the first film to make 
1 billion ($16.3 million) in four days.
16 - 2 Breaking Bad (season 5) List 333,277 People will want to keep up with the show, which means this won't be the last time we see this here. 17 15 41 YouTube
328,698 
Another perennially popular article 18 - 3 Justin Timberlake
326,703 
Between winning two awards at the MTV Video Music Awards, dissing One Direction and claiming he wants to be The Riddler, this guy's found many ways to keep himself in the news. 19 - - Syrian civil war
322,669 
If your country is potentially to become involved in a protracted, seemingly insolvable conflict, it helps to know more about it, and with the entire English-speaking world potentially on the guest list, interest on the English-speaking Wikipedia is understandably high. 20 - 5 Macklemore
318,836 
A perennial occasional visitor to the top 25. 21 - - Bashar al-Assad
311,606 
The dictator of Syria is certainly in no mood to concede the civil war currently wracking his country. Whether he resorted to chemical weapons is still not known with certainty, but the possibility has certainly galvanized the situation somewhat. 22 22 3 List of Breaking Bad episodes List 310,793 People want to keep up with this show. 23 - - 2013–14 UEFA Champions League
281,454 
August 28 was the final day of qualifying for Europe's Superbowl, with all the teams now in place. 24 - - Island of the Blue Dolphins
281,212 The 1960 children's novel based on the life of Juana Maria, the last Nicoleño Indian, who lived alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island in the 19th century, got a Reddit thread on August 31. 25 18 5 IPv6
277,488 
This issue has reappeared in the top 25, after hovering below it for some time. It is something of a crisis, though not one that is necessarily apparent. It may come as a surprise to some, but the Internet is, for lack of a better word, full. Every computer online is assigned a specific address, made up of a sequence of numbers, that allows other computers to contact it over the Internet. The original number sequence, known as IPv4, is currently the norm for ~99% of online computers. It allows for a maximum of about 4.3 billion addresses; a number that maxed out in January 2011. The long-term plan is to migrate over to IPv6, which allows for 3x1038 addresses; however, since this would require a massive software and even hardware upgrade, many companies are reluctant to undertake it. Until now we've been stalling for time by harvesting abandoned addresses and re-allocating them, a decidedly short-term measure.
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- Almosts:
- Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (270,922 views); 'N Sync (258,384 views); One Direction (251,514 views)
- Exclusions:
- This list excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, 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 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.
- Cat anatomy: A spammer with a sense of humor? Lazy med students looking for quick info on cat dissections? Or a REALLY confused adware bot for Friskies? The debate still rages as to why this article continues to rank so highly.
- G: This, or alternately G-force, frequently appears in the top 25. It is probably due to people typing "G" for "Google" in Google Chrome's search bar and hastily clicking "enter".
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- MONO (Shigeo Tamaru Album) and Chikako Watanabe: Articles related to the Japanese band NaNa have been popping into the Top 25 for weeks with no determined rationale. There may be one. We haven't found it.
- Lycos and Yahoo!: geriatric web portals seem to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason. Yahoo!'s removal may be slightly unfair, but it muscled its way into the top 25 weeks ago through shady means and I don't trust it anymore.
- List of reporting software: articles about obscure technical specifications frequently get massive, inexplicable view-spikes.
- Specific removals this week (those for whom no explanation for their popularity could be found):
- May you live in interesting times: the ancient Chinese curse, which, as far as is known, is neither ancient nor Chinese, has been trending a lot recently, for reasons unknown.
- Notes:
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 277,488. Last week: 230,577
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.