The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 31 to August 6, 2016)

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

Pop Culture to Olympics: Since the Olympic Opening Ceremony was only on August 5 (and this chart runs through August 6), the 2016 Summer Olympics only hit #2. It is very likely to top the chart next week. Olympic-related articles make up eight of the top 25. In the meantime, pop culture predominated the top of the chart, with the film Suicide Squad hitting #1, the new Harry Potter play at #3, and Netflix hit Stranger Things at #4.

In other, more technical news, the data in this week's report comes solely from TopViews. The data feed used to generate the WP:5000 since its creation has been deprecated by the WMF. For the time being, it will be slightly more cumbersome to make this chart, as we no longer have an easy source listing the rating class of each article and the mobile-desktop view percentages, though this information is still available to us.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of July 31 to August 6, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from Topviews Analysis were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Suicide Squad (film)	2,889,015	DC Comics' ramshackle crew of press-ganged supervillains, forced to do the will of a shadowy organization or let their heads explode, are the stars of one of the most anticipated films in the nascent DC Cinematic Universe, which was released on August 5 to generally negative reviews. Nonetheless, it grossed $267 worldwide in its opening weekend. Star Margot Robbie also landed the #7 spot this week, two characters in the film, Robbie's Harley Quinn, and Enchantress, also make the Top 25.
2	2016 Summer Olympics	1,421,144	Up from #15 last week as the games finally got underway. Opening rounds in some events began on August 3, and the 2016 Summer Olympics opening ceremony (#22) was held on August 5. This Olympics will have over 11,000 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (which includes all 193 members of the United Nations and additional special entities), competing in 28 sports. Two new sports this time include rugby sevens and golf. Golf is actually a returning sport, last featured in the 1904 games. Sadly, my favorite sport from the 1904, the plunge for distance, will not be returning. Michael Phelps (#9) is not quite that old, but he's back too.
3	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child	1,381,205	It seems like ever since J.K. Rowling published the last Harry Potter book in 2007 and vowed that the series was over, magical forces have eaten away at that pledge. And the biggest step away from that promise, if not a complete retreat, is the mounting of a London play which sets Harry twenty years in the future. The play script was released in book form on July 31, and bookstores tried to recreate the fervor of the prior book releases. And no doubt it will sell a ton of copies, but based on reviews, it does tarnish the legend a bit.
4	Stranger Things (TV series)	1,200,720	90,000 views more than last week. This Netflix science-fiction series is basically an 8-hour homage to early 80s kid-centric flicks like E.T., The Goonies and Explorers, though aimed mostly at adults. I binge-watched the whole thing in a few days and found it very enjoyable. But its appeal to millions who were not alive in the early 1980s is fascinating. The movies which inspired the series have lived on to a much greater extent than movies even ten years older. A parent can show a kid E.T. in 1996, 2006, or 2016, and the kid is still going to laugh and cry at the same parts. So Stranger Things taps into a nostalgia that is not limited to 1983, but one that is part of a common experience of youth, at least in America. Also, since I'm already pontificating, let me note that setting the series in 1983 is very helpful in dealing with the troublesome issue of cellphones. It has been noted that mobile phones "must be one of the worst things ever to happen to horror movies", but in 1983, when a kid left the house, no one knew where the hell they were. No one can pull up Google Maps or post Instagram photos of monsters. Today, if the Yeti isn't on twitter, he does not exist.
5	Donald Trump	806,195	Donald Trump likely said something controversial during this week, this is just a guess.
6	Harry Potter	785,355	See #3. Interestingly, a Harry Potter product has never appeared on the Top 25 before this week. The last film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, was released in July 2011, 18 months before the report began. Reviewing stats.grok.se data, for the week of July 17-23, 2011, that film had 891,856 views (non-mobile only), which was likely enough to be #1 for the week at that time, or close to it.
7	Margot Robbie	636,032	Starring in #1.
8	List of Steven Universe episodes	610,304	Up from #19 and 480K views last week. It's not often that kids' cartoons get on this list; My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic hasn't managed it in 5 years. But then, Steven Universe isn't exactly a kids' cartoon. In fact I'm not entirely sure I can explain what it is, but if you can imagine a magical girl anime remade in English with a gender-swapped lead, you can get some idea. The show has in the past been notorious for its patchy release schedule, and, as if in contrition, Cartoon Network are releasing new episodes of the show every day during the so-called "Summer of Steven". This has necessitated much checking of release times, hence the list's appearance here.
9	Michael Phelps	608,707	The most decorated Olympian of all time has returned for the 2016 Summer Olympics (#2). If you are in America, there is no way the television coverage misses a moment of anything Michael Phelps does. In fact, I understand that there are sports where America does not predominate in the Olympics, but that rarely makes it to American television. I went and looked at the medal table, and see, for example, that Kazakhstan has won 7 medals so far. This includes three in judo and three in weightlifting, which I assume may be covered somewhere on American television, but certainly nothing they've promoted. I bet weightlifting and judo are all over television in Kazakhstan.
10	Deaths in 2016	604,639	The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day-to-day basis. It is consistently higher in the first half of 2016 with a string of highly notable deaths, but things seem to be calming down a bit.
11	List of Olympic Games host cities	584,192	A great compendium of information you can review while waiting between races of #9, or judo matches if you're in Kazakhstan.
12	Harley Quinn	576,445	The character in #1 portrayed by Margot Robbie (#7).
13	Jason Bourne (film)	536,217	Slightly up from 474K views last week. Matt Damon returns to his signature franchise under his chosen director, Paul Greengrass to middling reviews and a solid $60 million opening.
14	Olympic Games	503,119	See #2.
15	Redbad, King of the Frisians	481,525	Reddit learned "that Redbad, the last pagan King of Frisia (northern Netherlands), refused to convert to Christianity because he 'preferred spending eternity in Hell with his pagan ancestors than in Heaven with his enemies.' "
16	2024 Summer Olympics	480,564	The host for the games to be held eight years from now is not due to be announced until September 2017. Its been in the news a bit in America due to speculation that the election of Donald Trump might hurt the Los Angeles bid for the games. The 2020 games are farther down the list at #25. The farthest out Olympics for which we current have an article is the 2028 Summer Olympics. There have been attempts to create future distant Olympic articles in the past (up to 2100!), though they get deleted, see, e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2032 Summer Olympics (4th nomination) (August 2015), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2040 Summer Olympics (August 2006); Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2015_October_18#2060_Summer_Olympics (October 2015, deleting redirects going through the 2100 games).
17	Kabali (film)	464,612	Down from #2 and 1.1M views last week. This Indian film (not Bollywood- it's in Tamil; Bollywood films are strictly Hindi) starring Rajinikanth (pictured) has, despite mixed reviews, smashed records in its first week of release, earning ₹3.2 billion ($48 million) worldwide. It the already the second highest-grossing Tamil film ever.
18	Pokémon Go	451,096	The pop-culture phenomenon of the year, it appears.
19	Bourne (film series)	450,928	See #13.
20	Enchantress (DC Comics)	424,955	The character in #1 portrayed by Cara Delevingne (#27).
21	2016 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations	422,929	The parade that opens #2 during #22. This list is primarily for including the order of countries in the parade, and their flagbearer. Greek sailor Sofia Bekatorou was the first flagbearer of the parade.
22	2016 Summer Olympics opening ceremony	419,669	See #2 and #21.
23	Goods and Services Tax Bill	414,228	This landmark value-added tax was passed by the Indian parliament on August 3. It will replace the existing confusion of local taxes in India with a single tax. It is still a ways off from implementation, as at least half of India's 29 states have to approve the measure as well.
24	Antoninus Pius	414,228	Reddit learned that he "had the most peaceful reign of any ruler in antiquity. There is no record of any major events or conflicts during his 23 year reign. He was a skilled administrator and was praised by his contemporaries for his effective style of governance." This got over 6500 upvotes by Reddit.
25	2020 Summer Olympics	409,044	The next summer Olympics will be in Tokyo in 2020. Interestingly, this article has existed since 2005, when it survived a deleted discussion. Eleven years later, the article is completely different, and continues to document the approach toward the next summer games.

Just missing the Top 25: #26 Jared Leto (403,581); #27 Cara Delevingne (400,481); #28 Love You Forever (393,783, reddit); #29 Killing of Harambe (392,970, odd internet meme); #30 Fahrenheit 451 (386,372)

Exclusions

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.