The Top 25 Report
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (January 1 to 7, 2017)
edit- Prepared with commentary by Milowent.
← Last week's report – Next week's report →
A New Year: 2017 kicks off more sedately than the string of highly notable deaths last week. The chart is led by the popular Indian film Dangal with 1.18 million views. Mariah Carey follows on the strength, or lack thereof, of her New Year's Eve performance at Times Square.
For the week of January 1 to 7, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Dangal (film) 
1,182,405 
Up from #7 last week, though with fewer views, but enough to reach one number after the flurry of last week's notable deaths. Aamir Khan (pictured) is without question the biggest star in Bollywood, a world where star power counts for a lot. So it's not surprising that his latest film is already breaking records, having made ₹1.07 billion ($15.78 million) in its first three days. 2 Mariah Carey 
1,177,898 
The diva singer ended 2016 with a performance gone terribly wrong in New York's Times Square on live television. I saw it happen live -- the music starts and she walks out and starts talking instead of singing, implying something was going wrong with her equipment, it was getting so painful I was surprised they didn't go to commercial. I immediately went to twitter to enjoy the first responders of humor. 2016 -- good riddance! 3 Om Puri
1,091,754 
This Indian actor, best known for his roles in films like Aakrosh (1980), Arohan (1982), Ardh Satya (1983) and East is East (1999), died on January 6. 4 Rogue One 
887,080 
Felicity Jones (pictured) stars in this Star Wars universe movie, which is continuing a decent run on this chart. 5 Carrie Fisher 
862,861 
A drop from 9.2 million views and #1 last week. It's not enough that 2016 took so many beloved people from us; at times the year seemed to be sadistically toying with us. When we first heard that the onetime Princess Leia had suffered a heart attack on a plane, naturally we feared that 2016 was about to turn its murderous eye onto one of the icons of our childhood. And then she was reported to be in stable condition, and we breathed again. And then, out of the blue, George Michael died. And then she did as well. But, as she said, given enough time, everything becomes funny, so maybe she would have found the humour in this. 6 List of Sherlock episodes 
786,178 
This hasn't been on the chart since January 2014, only because that was when the last series of Sherlock (#14) aired. 7 Deaths in 2017
758,898 
A new year, a new Deaths article in the top 10. 8 Elizabeth II
757,937 
For yet another week, the longest-reigning British monarch in history places on this list thanks to The Crown, a $100 million melodrama about her early years in which she is played by Claire Foy. 9 Sandford Fleming
705,516 
A Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor who was honored with Google Doodle for his 190th birthday. 10 Jimmy Carter
696,567 
The 39th President of the United States (1977-1981), his article was very popular on January 3 (620K views). Must be due to this reddit TIL thread titled "On his second day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts." which has over 48,000 upvotes. 11 Lyle and Erik Menendez
692,824 An American television network aired Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers — American Sons, American Murderers about these two brothers who murdered their wealthy parents in 1989. 12 Charles Manson
654,722 
Wow, murder is really on people's minds this week. Views peaked at 346K on January 4, after reports that he had been hospitalized. Even Charles Manson survived 2016, people. 13 Bokito (gorilla)
638,499 
Reddit says "in 2007 gorilla escaped from his exhibit, grabbed and mauled a nearby woman, and then attacked a restaurant. It was later revealed it was caused by the woman making eye contact and smiling at him several times a week, which zookeepers told her not to do." 14 Sherlock (TV series) 
635,426 See #6. 15 The OA
563,065 
A new Netflix series, created by and starring Brit Marling (pictured). 16 Debbie Reynolds
557,674 
The mother of Carrie Fisher, who was a world-class movie star in her own right, having appeared in Singin' in the Rain, How The West Was Won and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, outlived her daughter by less than 48 hours. According to her son, her last words were, "I miss her so much; I want to be with Carrie." 17 Donald Trump
554,883 
Donald Trump was actually not on the Top 25 last week. But it didn't last. 18 George Michael
536,287 
Down from #2 and 7.7 million views. Like many in the music business, George Michael spent much of his life under masks. A British singer of Greek descent, he changed his name from Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. Throughout the 80s, he adopted the swagger of a preening sex god whilst being secretly gay. After being forced out of the closet in the most humiliating circumstance imaginable, he decided to own his identity, and campaigned vociferously on gay rights issues. Perhaps the best outcome of his sudden death on Christmas Day has been the outpouring of stories by people whose lives were bettered by his quiet charity, news of which has quieted Britain's notoriously homophobic tabloid press. 19 Gavin Rossdale
534,518 
469K views on January 7, where the singer with a notably raspy voice appeared as judge for the first time on The Voice UK's new series. 20 List of highest-grossing Indian films
527,890 
A typical year-end popular article. 21 Geeta Phogat
521,482 #1 is based on her and his sister Babita Kumari's lives. She is portrayed by Fatima Sana Shaikh in the movie. Phoghat won India's first ever gold medal in wrestling at the Commonwealth Games, and is also the first ever Indian female wrestler to have qualified for the Olympics. 22 Ronda Rousey
521,176 
The face of UFC was beaten in just 48 seconds at UFC 207. 23 Star Wars (film)
516,001 
The fact that Rogue One (#4) has a plot that links to a 39 year old film is intriguing to me. Much of pop culture is rather ephemeral, but a movie which survives without being too dated can be enjoyed by new generations. In 1977, there was no movie from 1938 (39 years prior) that could have the same staying power as Star Wars does today. 24 Star Wars
508,353 See #4 and #23. 25 Passengers (2016 film)
507,674 
Jennifer Lawrence (pictured) and Chris Pratt star in this science fiction film which debuted on December 21 in the United States.
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 (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% 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.
- I did remove Darth Vader this week - it would have been #7 with 768,137 views but that 9.55% mobile count is still suspicious. There is no question that all Star Wars related articles are more popular during the theatre run of Rogue One (#5), but it doesn't seem likely it is this popular.
- Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.