The Top 25 Report
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 12 to 18, 2016)
edit← Last week's report – Next week's report →
Goalposts: It is football time in Europe, with UEFA Euro 2016 rising to #1 this week, and also in the New World, with Copa América Centenario (#6) being hosted in the United States. The killing of Christina Grimmie, continued near the top of the chart for another week, this time at #2, and the theme of death continued with the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (#5) (though the weapon used was not an AR-15 (#8)), as well as Jo Cox (#7). Well outside the Top 10, the new movie Finding Dory is a blockbuster in movie theatres, but only #20 on our chart, because young kids don't visit Wikipedia about movies as much as adults do. Their older siblings do, however, putting The Conjuring 2 at #3, and two other topics related to the film in the Top 25.
As prepared by Milowent, for the week of June 12 to 19, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 UEFA Euro 2016 
2,332,785 
Up from #4 last week, with almost 900,000 more views. For the latest go round, held in France, the European international football tournament has been expanded from 16 to 24 teams, which means that most of the British Isles (bar Scotland) are competing together for the first time in decades. Of course, England's fans marked the occasion with a bit of hooliganism, as if the referendum weren't enough of a snub to Europe. 2 Christina Grimmie 
2,264,084 
Up 700,000 views from last week. Some things are difficult to talk about. It is a sad fact of American life that, just as people's lives can rise on a dime, so too can they end. That a minor singing celebrity who had built her entire career on her relationship with her fans could be brought down by a single, random, misfiring member of her fandom who happened to have a gun is both tragic and infuriating. That it happened in Orlando, Florida, now feels like a strange prelude to the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. 3 The Conjuring 2
1,474,929 
Up from #7 last week with twice as many views. Fans of the supernatural may take some issue with the veracity of demonologist ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (#13), but there's no denying that The Conjuring (#22), the first film based on their case files, was a highly effective (and highly successful) spookfest. The sequel, which reunites stars Vera Farmiga (pictured) and Patrick Wilson, has proven just as popular, with a solid 75% on Rotten Tomatoes and $91 million worldwide grossed in just three days. And $186 million through June 19. 4 Karl Landsteiner
1,310,447 
A Google Doodle celebrated the 148th birthday of the biologist and physician who discovered the ABO blood group system in 1901. For this discovery he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. 5 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting
1,216,345 
On June 12, 29-year-old Omar Mateen went to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and killed 49 people. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman and the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history, and the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks in 2001. It seems pretty apparent these mass killings will continue occur unless the United States takes strong action against the mentally ill and/or easy ownership of the weapons which are incredibly efficient at mass-killing even in the hands of unstable lone shooters. 6 Copa América Centenario
1,175,857 
The exhibition tournament between all ten members of CONMEBOL (the South American football federation) and six members of CONCACAF (the North American football federation) to celebrate 100 years of the South American international cup, the Copa America, kicked off on June 3. 7 Jo Cox
1,065,668 
Cox was a British Labour Party politician, a rising star in British politics, and Member of Parliament (MP). On June 16, Cox was shot and stabbed to death in Birstall by a 52-year-old man who self-identified as a British nationalist. So much hate. 8 AR-15 
921,319 
Apparently this was not the weapon used in the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (#5), though it was initially reported to be. It was actually a SIG Sauer MCX. The use of AR-15s in mass shootings used to have a section at AR-15, but at the moment it appears to have been removed as its effectiveness in mass shootings is apparently not notable?[1]. 9 O. J. Simpson
909,514 
At first I assumed that American Crime Story, which put Simpson on this chart a few months ago, had restarted. Apparently not. Instead it was the network debut of O.J.: Made in America, a five part miniseries. It seems O.J. Simpson stories could soon rival the status World War II movies once had as a television time filler. 10 Game of Thrones (season 6)
861,883 
The latest season of this eternally popular TV series premiered on HBO on 24 April. With only a few episodes left in this season, we can expect it stay up on the chart. 11 Tom Hiddleston 
856,859 
Hiddleston is an actor, but best I can tell, people got very excited last week about pictures of him with Taylor Swift. A fact not even mentioned in the article at this point, but that's why we have article history, which preserves the giddy attempts to add this information to our compendium of human knowledge. 12 Muhammad Ali
803,364 
Down from #1. 13 Ed and Lorraine Warren
733,666 
See #3 14 Warcraft (film)
704,028 
Duncan "son of David Bowie" Jones's ode to the video game franchise he apparently loves has not wowed critics, with Rotten Tomatoes ranking it as the second-worst-reviewed film of the US summer season (the worst reviewed, if you're wondering, was the horror flick The Darkness, with just 5%, a score even Warcraft can look down on). Unsurprisingly, its domestic performance has been anaemic, coming in second to The Conjuring 2; its international performance, particularly in China, has, however, been fairly stellar, so Jones may come out of this with his well-earned good reputation intact. 15 Deaths in 2016 
650,261 
The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day-to-day basis, with close to 100,000 views a day. 16 Hamilton (musical)
637,920 
The most popular American Broadway musical in many years cleaned up at the 70th Tony Awards on June 12, winning 11 total awards. 17 Wounded Knee Massacre
631,471 
Apparently the Orlando shooting (#5) put this in the news, due to debates over whether Orlando is the worst mass shooting in American history. I have not researched this debate, but it is frequently the case that news sources will claim a recent big news event is the biggest thing ever to happen. Proper perspective only comes with some hindsight, after the newspapers are sold and all the links have been clicked, leaving a generation of people who will recall what was originally reported as the actual facts. 18 Donald Trump
627,262 
Mr. Trump said controversial things this week. 19 Game of Thrones
605,866 See #10. 20 Finding Dory
600,761 
The long-awaited sequel to Finding Nemo earned $205 million in its opening weekend. Its only way down here at #20 because its a kids' movie, and young kids don't visit Wikipedia about movies as much as adults do. 21 Red Hot Chili Peppers
566,178 
Perhaps due to reddit. 22 The Conjuring
528,154 The movie before #3. 23 Stephen Curry
504,619 
Down from #10, though when the week ended on Saturday evening, the Golden State Warriors still had a chance. 24 Alexander Hamilton
503,172 
See #16. He may not have dated Taylor Swift like #11 allegedly is, but he is also a Good article. 25 LeBron James
477,601 
Star of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team.
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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 (~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. 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.