The Top 25 Report
Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 23 to 29 2013)
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Summary: The real world made a strong showing in the top 25 this week, as news stories such as Yahoo!'s purchase of Tumblr, the murder of Odin Lloyd, the continuing drama over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the ill-health of Nelson Mandela and the challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act in the US Supreme Court crowded out the usual roster of TV shows, movies, websites and video games. Not that they were entirely excluded, of course.
For the week of June 23 to 29, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Views Image Notes 1 2 2 Yahoo! 2,901,780 
Once considered moribund, the old warhorse of the Internet has been radically redesigning itself; purchasing Tumblr, ditching AltaVista (seriously, that was still around?) and refocusing its attention on mobile applications. It seems to have worked; stock is up 50% on last year, and our fellow net denizens' antennae have been set buzzing (this was the most viewed article on Wikipedia in over four months- those who bemoan the slow collapse of human society will be pleasantly shocked to learn that the last one to top it was Nicolaus Copernicus). 2 - - Antoni Gaudí 1,154,577 
The designer of what is officially the world's coolest cathedral got some posthumous recognition thanks to a Google Doodle on what would have been his 161st birthday. 3 - - Aaron Hernandez 952,383 
What is the only thing America loves to follow more than sports stars? Disgraced sports stars. And while this very-quickly-former New England Patriot is still only a suspect in the murder of Odin Lloyd (for which he was arrested on June 26), that hasn't stopped the public from ripping into this case like wolves on a moose. 4 - 2 Edward Snowden 814,450 The story of the international cause célèbre who blew the whistle on the NSA's domestic spying program becomes more gripping by the day. Denied a passport by the US government, he remains trapped in Terminal E of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport "under care" of Russia (to quote Rafael Correa) and seeking asylum in Ecuador. Polls suggest Americans are still fairly divided on whether to treat this man as a hero or a traitor, which will only stimulate more debate and, likely, more Wikipedia views in future. 5 - 2 Nelson Mandela 804,204 
The 94-year-old father of the new South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize winner and all-round global inspiration was rushed to hospital on June 8 amid serious worries about his health. His condition, described as critical, added poignancy to Barack Obama's visit to South Africa, and prurience to a bitter family feud regarding his burial. He's still alive, people! 6/7 15/2 2/4 World War Z (film) and
Man of Steel (film)683,510/
659,271These two Hollywood films, despite each being out for more than a week, remain the only ones in Wikipedia's top 40. It is a curious fact that neither anticipation or boxoffice success appear to play much role in which films receive the most Wikipedia attention. Man of Steel is an undisputed hit, with a current worldwide gross of $520 million, but World War Z's grosses, while fair, are hardly incendiary. Conversely, Monsters University, which leads the current weekend and has already outgrossed World War Z by a wide margin, barely cracked the top 50, while the two latest releases, The Heat and White House Down, were both well outside the top 100. 8 6 25 Facebook 570,110 
A perennially popular article. 9 - - Raanjhanaa 529,383 
The Bollywood debut of award-winning Tamil actor Dhanush was released on June 21 and has already made back its ₹35 crore ($6 million) budget, no doubt aided by a score from internationally renowned composer A. R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire) 10 7 4 The Last of Us 514,965 This eagerly awaited and critically adored not-quite-zombie apocalypse video game was released on June 13. 11 - - Defense of Marriage Act 465,304 
The US federal law that disallowed same-sex marriages from being recognized at a national level was deemed un-Constitutional by the United States Supreme Court on June 26, opening the door for same-sex couples to receive military benefits and immigration rights. 12 14 35 Deaths in 2013 448,604 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 13 - - Paula Deen 436,191 
This American celebrity chef has become a talking point after a former employee sued her for racial discrimination regarding her allegedly copious use of the N-word. As a result, her latest cookbook surged to the top of the Amazon bestseller list, while Ballantine Books dropped her as a client. That is called irony. 14 - - Under the Dome 403,557 The bestselling novel by Stephen King arguably got a boost from people looking for the new miniseries based on it (see #20 below). 15 8 2 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup 401,506 
FIFA's quickie warmup to the Football World Cup in 2014 (which pits the winners of the various continental football confederation championships against each other) ran from 15 to 30 June 2013,and ended with victory for Brazil over world and European champions Spain; a good omen, perhaps to their hosting the World Cup next year. 16 11 17 Game of Thrones 505,438 
Yeah, it's been off-air for two weeks, but that hasn't stopped people talking about it. 17 24 24 Google 383,293 
A perennially popular article. 18 - - Melanesian 379,620 
This ethnic group, noted for developing a gene for blonde hair entirely different from that of Europeans, became a popular topic on Reddit. 19 17 6 List of Bollywood films of 2013 373,453 
Newly established staple of the top 25. 20 - - Under the Dome (TV series) 345,395 The Stephen King/Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries (based a bit loosely on his novel- see #14 above) began airing on CBS on June 24. 21 21 36 World War II 336,300 
Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) 22 18 35 YouTube 331,843 
Another perennially popular article 23 15 2 World War Z 306,722 Max Brooks's faux-oral history of a future zombie apocalypse gained a large boost in views this week, most likely from users searching for the Brad Pitt-starring "not-really-film-adaptation" (see #6 above). 24 - - Filibuster 305,090 Wendy Davis's 10+ hour effort re-acquainted the public with this oddball debating procedure that some consider an essential check on power and others consider a disruptive annoyance. 25 - - IPv6 299,496 
This issue has been hovering below the top 25 for some time, and finally made it in due to an exceptionally low entry level (this was the first week since January that an article with less than 300,000 views made it into the top 25). 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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- This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
- Cat anatomy: A spammer with a sense of humour? 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.
- Specific removals this week (those for whom no explanation for their popularity could be found):
- Aleksandra Janusz,: Why a redlink of a Polish science fiction writer would reach the top ten is not certain; however it looks too sloppy (note the comma) to be due to separate human views
- Dr Christopher: Not to be a fanboy but er, Doctor Who? Might be a reference to the herbalist, but again the sloppiness (note the lack of a full stop) suggests it is due to a spambot.
- Chikako Watanabe: Why this Japanese singer, who last released an album in March, who has not appeared in the news and has not had any exposure on Reddit should suddenly have a massive spike in views on the 28th and 29th of June is still not known.
- W Walce: Polish for "in the fight", possibly a reference to football.
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 299,496. Last week: 316,342
- Almosts: Deadpool (282,127 views); Nik Wallenda (281,540 views); Attack on Titan (280,025 views)
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.