Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 11 to 17, 2013)

← Last week's report – Next week's Report →

Summary: The arrival of the final season of Breaking Bad, arguably the most critically acclaimed TV series since The Wire, has spurred interest across the board, with three entries in the top 25. A Google Doodle to celebrate the birthday of physicist Erwin Schrödinger gave entries for both the man and his ill-used cat. This week was also another banner week for Indian viewers, with five India-related topics in the list, including no. 1, no doubt aided by the celebration of that country's Independence Day on August 15.

For the week of August 11 - 17, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	-	-	Draw (chess)		950,240	The stalemate in chess became a topic of discussion in India when Chess Grandmasters Baskaran Adhiban and Parimarjan Negi both drew during the 2013 Chess World Cup in Norway.
2	4	3	Breaking Bad		881,759	The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11.
3	-	-	Erwin Schrödinger		871,286	The Austrian physicist, founder of quantum mechanics and originator of the somewhat disturbing thought experiment that bears his name got a Google Doodle to celebrate his 126th birthday on August 12. He meant it as a joke, but as often happens in physics, jokes are hard to explain away.
4	3	2	Chennai Express		822,516	This Bollywood action-romance has broken records at the Indian box office, becoming the first film to make ₹1 billion ($16.3 million) in four days.
5	2	32	Facebook		720,633	A perennially popular article
6	-	-	Schrödinger's cat		685,484	The world's least fortunate and most perplexing hypothetical kitty bent many minds and continued to stump the human race in his simultaneous existence and lack thereof, thanks to the honor paid his creator by Google.
7	-	-	Independence Day (India)		485,948	The 66th anniversary of Indian independence in 1947 was celebrated on August 15.
8	5	13	List of Bollywood films of 2013	List	459,693	An established staple of the top 25.
9	10	5	The Conjuring (film)		446,658	James Wan's latest ghost story (reportedly based on true events, take that as you will) stormed the US, taking $70 million in its first week, and is now closing in on $200 million worldwide.
10	-	-	Breaking Bad (season 5)	List	440,418	People will want to keep up with the show, which means this won't be the last time we see this here.
11	6	42	Deaths in 2013	List	400,402	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
12	-	-	List of Breaking Bad episodes	List	384,706	As above, people want to keep up with this show.
13	-	-	Lisa Robin Kelly		382,034	The former star of That 70s Show died on August 14, aged only 43, reportedly from cardiac arrest, after a long-term battle with alcoholism.
14	-	-	Ashton Kutcher		373,783	Another former star of That 70s Show who got onto the list for very different reasons; both for starring as Steve Jobs in a new biopic, and also for an inspirational speech he delivered at the Teen Choice Awards on August 11 that went viral on the Internet.
15	-	-	2013 World Championships in Athletics		357,599	The tournament is currently being held in Russia, no doubt seen as a warm up to the Winter Olympics in 2014.
16	7	30	Google		355,473	A perennially popular article.
17	20	2	Elysium (film)		312,719	Neill Blomkamp's followup to District 9 won last weekend by taking nearly $30 million, despite its heavier-than-usual allegorical undertones.
18	16	5	Orange Is the New Black		296,739	The women-in-prison TV series premiered in its entirety on Netflix on 11 July.
19	-	-	Kick Ass 2 (film)		287,271	The ridiculously violent superhero pastiche opens this week to poor reviews and uncertain box office, but feverish speculation among Wikipedians.
20	-	-	Wow! signal		285,065	In 53 years of pulling the lever of the cosmic one-armed bandit, this remains the closest SETI have come to hitting the jackpot. It got into the top 25 thanks to a popular thread on Reddit.
21	-	-	Elon Musk		278,705	The flamboyant billionaire founder of PayPal and SpaceX got into the news thanks to the unveiling of his planned hyperloop maglev high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
22	18	8	Attack on Titan		272,157	This anime series has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere. Interest may have recently been spiked by a series of badly-translated death threats against the show's creator, supposedly for basing a character on the series on a General in the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII.
23	-	-	Duck Dynasty		264,958	The reality show's fourth season premiered on August 14.
24	19	39	YouTube		259,058	Another perennially popular article
25	-	-	India		243,293	The world's largest democracy got a boost in views thanks to its independence anniversary on August 15 (see #7 above)

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 keep in mind that the explanations given for these articles' popularity are, fundamentally, guesses. Just because a plausible reason is found for a view spike, that doesn't mean it wasn't due to a bot.

There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the top 25 for no determined reason, and have been excluded as likely being due to automated views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

- Cat anatomy: A spammer with a sense of humor? 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.
- MONO (Shigeo Tamaru Album) and Chikako Watanabe: Articles related to the Japanese band NaNa have been popping into the Top 25 for weeks with no determined rationale. There may be one. We haven't found it.
- Lycos and Yahoo!: geriatric web portals seem to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason. Yahoo!'s removal may be slightly unfair, but it muscled its way into the top 25 weeks ago through shady means and I don't trust it anymore.
- List of reporting software: Why this got 4 million views I will likely never know.

Specific removals this week (those for whom no explanation for their popularity could be found):

- May you live in interesting times: the "ancient Chinese curse" (which appears to be neither ancient nor Chinese) would appear to be perfect fodder for a thread on Reddit, but apparently not.

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 243,293. Last week: 242,565
Almosts: Robin Thicke (231,307 views); Linda Lovelace (229,879 views); Ed and Lorraine Warren (228,158 views)

The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.