The Top 25 Report
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 28 to September 3, 2016)
edit← Last week's report – Next week's report →
Lull: The end of the Olympics has brought a bit of a lull this week. Actor Gene Wilder's death (#1) received significant attention and 3.5 million views, also lifting his second wife Gilda Radner (#8), who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, into the Top 10. Netflix's Stranger Things continues to show strange staying power, at #3 this week. The 2016 MTV Video Music Awards also propelled a number of performers into the Top 25, and Rihanna to #9. Oddly though, after our commentary on Reddit last week, a full six articles apparently fueled by Reddit made it into the Top 25 (all outside the Top 10). This includes slots 22-25, which wouldn't have made it last week when the threshold to make the Top 25 was a bit higher. And though I happen to know that #25, Thomas Day, was actually the subject of the "Stuff You Misssed in History Class" podcast the day before its Reddit thread, so that was no doubt the original inspiration for the post.
And if you're missing Olympics coverage, please do check out the Special report in the latest Signpost, where we dissected the relative popularlity of Olympic-related articles in seven different language Wikipedias.
As prepared by Milowent, for the week of August 28 to September 3, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the newly-revamped WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Gene Wilder 
3,500,029 
The American comedian born Jerome Silberman (a fact I just learned), very popular in a number of 1970s and 1980s films, died at home in Connecticut on August 29. He had been out of the spotlight for a number of years, and died of complications from Alzheimer's disease, a condition he had kept private. 2 Colin Kaepernick 
1,294,476 
This American football player is getting a lot of attention for choosing to sit during the national anthem, as a protest against the treatment of minorities, see Colin_Kaepernick#National_anthem_protest. There's lot of strong opinions going around America about this, so I'll leave mine out for once. 3 Stranger Things (TV series)
999,668 
This Netflix science-fiction series is basically an 8-hour homage to early 80s kid-centric flicks like E.T., The Goonies and Explorers, though aimed mostly at adults. It has been a smash hit for Netflix, evidenced by its continuing appearance on this chart -- seven straight weeks. Netflix recently ordered a second season. 4 Juan Gabriel
925,762 
This Mexican singer and songwriter died of a heart attack at his home in California on August 28. He was clearly very popular in the Spanish-speaking world, as the Spanish version of his article got [1] 5 Queen Victoria 
848,142 
Not a Google Doodle or a significant anniversary, but the debut of the British television show Victoria. 6 Killing of Harambe 
664,596 
What began as a heartfelt reaction to what some felt was the unnecessary killing of a silverback western lowland gorilla (pictured, though not him specifically) has morphed over the last three months into online trolling and racist abuse, along with the standard targeted misogyny. What the troll army hopes to accomplish is never clear, but whatever it is it doesn't involve helping gorillas. 7 Deaths in 2016 
663,187 
The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day-to-day basis. It was consistently higher in the first half of 2016 with a string of highly notable deaths. 8 Gilda Radner 
625,108 
The wife of #1 died in 1989 from ovarian cancer. 9 Rihanna
605,079 
The singer was featured at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. 10 Pablo Escobar
601,802 
Narcos is back. 11 Weasel word
579,844 
Reddit says. 12 Don't Breathe (2016 film)
560,130 
Up from #23 and 482K views last week. This horror entry, essentially a cross between Wait Until Dark and First Blood, in which, instead of Audrey Hepburn as the blind victim getting her home invaded, it's a crazed vet with supernatural hearing who soon turns the tables on the poor schlubs, opened the prior week to stellar notices and a $26 million opening weekend. 13 Teyana Taylor
542,229 
Performed at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. 14 Huma Abedin
526,901 
When yet another round of husband Anthony Weiner sexting other women came out, his wife (and Hillary Clinton confidante) finally left the idiot. 15 Donald Trump
526,664 
The presidential reality show contestant survived yet another week. 16 Suicide Squad (film)
520,482 
DC Comics' ramshackle crew of press-ganged supervillains, forced to do the will of a shadowy organization or let their heads explode, are the stars of one of the most anticipated films in the nascent DC Cinematic Universe, which was released on August 5 to generally negative reviews. Nonetheless, it grossed $267M worldwide in its opening weekend. 17 Drake (musician)
515,637 
Performed at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. Apparently he kissed #9 at the show? 18 The Star-Spangled Banner
471,293 
#2 not standing for it put the U.S. anthem in the Top 25. 19 The Night Of
468,560 The finale of the first season of this HBO crime drama debuted on August 28. 20 Richard Jewell
465,737 Reddit learned again about how this man was wrongfully accused of the 1996 Olympics bombing. I vividly remember the wild accusations against this guy, it was a travesty. As humans we need to do our best to remember these examples to avoid repeating them. 21 Britney Spears
415,935 
Performed at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. I have a soft spot in my heart for Britney because like I, she cannot really sing that well. She's still much better than me, though, and that's ok. 22 Benjamin Franklin
407,905 
If any Founding Father of the United States could have traveled to the present day and understood the Killing of Harambe meme, it would have been Benjamin Franklin. But this week Reddit learned about $4,000 he gave to the city of Boston when he died, which was held in trust for 200 years, and then worth over $5 million when used to establish a trade school. 23 Late Bronze Age collapse
395,628 
I know this must be Reddit too, but finding the thread this time is almost as hard if figured out what caused the Late Bronze Age Collapse, as we don't really know. 24 Robert Liston
385,775 
Reddit AGAIN. But the hook is great clickbait. 25 Thomas Day
382,020 
Reddit YET AGAIN. I think Seren brought this upon us with his rant against Reddit last week. This time, though, I think I know the source of the reddit thread, which was posted on August 30. On August 29, the very enjoyable "Stuff You Missed In History Class" podcast from HowStuffWorks posted an episode on the quirky Thomas Day, this has to be where it started from.
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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). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~5% or less) or almost all mobile views (~95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Since WP:5000 and WMF Topviews use different exclusion algorithms, articles that appear in one but not the other can also safely be excluded as false. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
- Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.