The Top 25 Report
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 21 to 27, 2016)
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Brawling: One night in June 1852, during a Whig National Convention which was going awry, American politician Alvan E. Bovay and newspaperman Horace Greeley dined at Lovejoy's Hotel in New York City, where Bovay first suggested the founding of what became the United States Republican Party. In 2016, with the improbable domination of Donald Trump (#1 once again this week), it's a safe bet that secret dinners are now being had by politicians foreseeing the end of that political party.
This week's Top 25 is dominated by political brawling with Mr. Trump at the top, and physical brawling, with a number of wrestling-related entries down the chart starting with Fastlane (2016) at #7. Deadpool (film) (#2) rides high for another week as the most popular pop-culture entry.
As prepared by Milowent, for the week of February 21 to 27, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Donald Trump 
1,938,436 
Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee in this year's United States presidential election, barring something crazy happening. He won the South Carolina primary on February 20, and smashed his opponents in the February 23 Nevada primary. He is leading in the polls in most other states heading into March 1's "Super Tuesday" (#24) primaries. 2 Deadpool (film) 
1,340,113 
Down from #1 and 2.8 million views last week. The Marvel Comics antihero film starring Ryan Reynolds (pictured) was released on February 12 to a stellar reception. Regarded as a risk by its makers 20th Century Fox, the film has earned over $600 million as of February 29. 3 O. J. Simpson
980,872 
As predicted by the co-author of this report (and not wished for by yours truly), the former football player, Leslie Nielsen costar and alleged murderer has become a fixture of this list, thanks to the first season of American Crime Story, the true-crime spinoff of American Horror Story, which focuses on his controversial trial. 4 Neerja Bhanot 
947,988 
On September 5, 1986, just two days before her 23rd birthday, this Pan Am flight attendant was shot dead by terrorists affiliated with Abu Nidal as she spearheaded an escape from the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 that ultimately saved over 300 lives. She was posthumously awarded India's highest peacetime bravery award, the Ashoka Chakra. Her life and death became the subject of a Bollywood biopic this week, Neerja, starring Sonam Kapoor (pictured) in the title role. Up from #10 and 800K views last week. 5 Deadpool
797,094 
Marvel may have disavowed their X-Men franchise until Fox gives it back to them, but their fourth wall-tickling, chimichanga-chomping, bullet-spraying loony toon obviously remains a potent force, whether they like it or not. Down from #3 and 1.7 million views last week. 6 Robert Kardashian
678,065 The now-deceased patriarch of the mediavorous Kardashian clan was a close friend of O. J. Simpson (#3) and played a role in the controversial trial that engulfed American pop culture in the 1990s. Of course, the sudden resurgence of interest in the case following the premiere of American Crime Story had led the less scrupulous end of the media to dredge up colorful supposed links between it and the current generation. 7 Fastlane (2016)
664,591 
Wrestler Roman Reigns prevailed in the main event at this professional wrestling event held in Cleveland, Ohio on February 21. 8 Fuller House (TV Series)
659,077 
This sequel series to the 1987-95 American sitcom Full House debuted on Netflix on February 26, 2016. Pictured is actress Candace Cameron Bure, one of the returning cast members. I hope historians of the future realize that the reason ridiculous TV shows could return after 20 years in 2016 was because of the changing ways we watch TV, with on-demand, niche-driven options of channels like Netflix meeting needs no one could believe existed. To go back one prior generation of silly TV, The Brady Bunch (1969-1974) milked all it could out of sequels and movies after its original run, but a complete sequel series after twenty years would not have been viable. 9 Melania Trump
633,777 
The Donald's wife has generally kept a lower profile on the campaign trail compared to Trump's children. But the recent growth of TV appearances and brief comments at podiums, feeding the apparently insatiable demand of the news-media for Trump news, puts Melania onto this chart for the first time. 10 Kesha 
613,154 
Interest in this singer's article started to rise on February 19, and remained popular through this week. This interest arises out of her recent loss of a sexual harassment lawsuit against music producer Dr. Luke (#25) seeking to void her contracts. 11 Shane McMahon
593,845 
The former professional wrestler reappeared on stage on February 22. 12 Deaths in 2016 
578,001 
The annual list of deaths has always been a fairly consistent visitor to this list, averaging about 500,000 views a week. Since the death of David Bowie, this article's views have jumped on average, but may slowly be returning to the mean. 13 Pierre Brassau
593,845 
Reddit became acquainted with this bit of monkey business. 14 Jodie Sweetin
568,870 
This actress is among the cast members returning for Fuller House (#8). 15 O. J. Simpson murder case
564,696 See #3. 16 Marco Rubio
534,305 
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio has become the establishment choice to take down Donald Trump (#1), but so far it isn't really working. 17 Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016
502,224 
Articles like this one provide hard-core detailed information about the party nomination process; that can make the Top 25 shows the rising level of interest in Trump's chances of being the Republican Party nominee. 18 Bernie Sanders
493,031 
Bernie lost the recent Nevada and South Carolina Democratic party contests for the Presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, and is very unlikely to become that party's nominee. 19 Tami Erin 
457,183 
Redditors like to pursue knowledge, and a knowledge of sex tapes is not outside their purview. 20 Nate Diaz
455,631 
Another professional wrestler; will wrestle at UFC 196 on March 5. 21 The Revenant (2015 film)
452,460 
Alejandro González Iñárritu's Western survival epic continues to be popular. The Oscars occurred the day after the week covered by this report, so I'll pretend I don't know what happened to its nominations. 22 WrestleMania 32 445,622 This event will occur on April 3, 2016, and though I will not be watching it, many people will. 23 Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016
428,317 Same thing as #17 for the U.S. Democratic party. 24 Super Tuesday
423,563 
For the love of Pete, isn't there anything popular beyond U.S. Presidential politics and wrestling this week? 25 Dr. Luke
423,563 
Re #24 - ugh, more of this, too? See #10.
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Just missing the Top 25: Love (TV series) (#26, new Netflix show); Ted Cruz (#27, if you can't make the Top 25, you're not going to be the nominee); Robert Shapiro (lawyer) (#28, more O.J.); The Walking Dead (season 6) (#29); and List of Bollywood films of 2016 (#30).
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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% 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. 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.
- Specific exclusions this week
- None