Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 14 to 20 2013)

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

Summary: Death hangs over the top 25 this week, as tragic deaths both past and present continued to cast their pall over an already troubled world. The death of Cory Monteith led to a spike in interest in the man himself, his girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele, and the show that made them both famous, Glee. Meanwhile, the tragic death of Trayvon Martin and its troubling implications for gun safety and race relations in the United States continued to be a talking point.

For the week of July 14 to 20, 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	-	-	Cory Monteith		2,678,320	The death of the 31-year-old star of Glee from an combined overdose of alcohol and heroin was the defining pop-culture event of the week
2	3	2	Shooting of Trayvon Martin		2,397,205	The debate over George Zimmerman's shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, and its relevance to race relations in America and the validity of "stand your ground" laws, reached its climax on July 13 when a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of either murder or manslaughter.
3	-	-	Rembrandt		1,403,377	The greatest of the Dutch masters got a Google Doodle to celebrate his 407th birthday on July 15.
4	6	2	Pacific Rim (film)		928,640	Guillermo del Toro's $190-million anime-inspired monsters vs. robots slugfest is not tracking well with the American mainstream, and now seems unlikely to crack $100 million domestically, but remains in its second week the biggest talking point among Wikipedian cineastes.
5	-	-	Lea Michele		794,606	The co-star and girlfriend of the late Cory Monteith got a great deal of interest from Wikipedians in the wake of Monteith's tragic death.
6	13	2	Milkha Singh		775,259	"The Flying Sikh", the record-breaking track and fielder who represented India in three Olympic Games, became a topic of interest after his biopic, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, was released on July 12. Singh sold the rights for ₹1 but insisted a share of the profits be given to a charitable trust.
7	5	28	Facebook		684,885	A perennially popular article.
8	-	-	Glee (TV series)		595,960	The popular glee club TV show made its 2013 debut in the top 25 on the back of Cory Monteith's tragic death.
9	-	-	Bhaag Milkha Bhaag		566,299	Biopic of Indian athlete Milkha Singh (see #6 above)
10	-	-	Stand-your-ground law		495,954	The controversial US gun law that allows people the right of self-defense without the requirement of retreat has been flagged by the shooting of Trayvon Martin (see #2 above)
11	-	-	Orange Is the New Black		461,454	The women-in-prison TV series premiered in its entirety on Netflix on July 11.
12	9	38	Deaths in 2013	List	414,797	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
13	16	9	List of Bollywood films of 2013	List	349,942	Newly established staple of the top 25.
14	-	-	The Conjuring (film)		356,252	James Wan's latest ghost story (reportedly based on true events, take that as you will) stormed the weekend in the US, opening with $41 million; more than double its $20 million budget.
15	24	26	Google		324,012	A perennially popular article.
16	19	5	Attack on Titan		320,660	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. Or maybe because it's about giant monsters and Pacific Rim just came out.
17	22	3	IPv6		306,786	This issue has reappeared in the top 25, after hovering below it for some time. 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.
18	-	-	Guernica (painting)		302,310	Picasso's depiction of the bombing of Guernica by Nazi and Francoist forces during the Spanish Civil War got a Reddit thread thanks to a laconic put-down by the Master; when asked by a Nazi soldier, "Did you do that?", he replied, "No, you did."
19	-	-	Money in the Bank (2013)		301,614	Fourth annual WWE event held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on July 14
20	23	19	Game of Thrones		297,136	People just can't get enough of this show, even when it hasn't been on air for a month.
21	-	37	World War II		297,003	Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.)
22	22	36	YouTube		290,289	Another perennially popular article
23	-	-	Suits (TV series)		266,575	This USA Network lawyer drama began its third season on July 16
24	-	4	Nelson Mandela		253,918	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 is described as critical.
25	-	-	2013 in film	List	248,315	A new entry to the top 25, perchance aided by being the lowest-viewed entry yet recorded.

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.
- 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.

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

- Last Resort (TV series): Why this canceled TV series would suddenly rise in popularity has not been determined.

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 248,315. Last week: 302,049
Almosts: Breaking Bad (246,498 views); United States (245,687 views); Bruce Lee (244,980 views)

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