Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 21 to 27, 2015)

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We're Baaaack: Recently the wise and benevolent programmers of WMF did something that the lay people of the internet probably barely noticed. They made that "http" thing that still shows up in some browsers, though everyone forgot what it meant in about 1999, well, they changed it to "https". Apparently this has something to do with security. I would assume it was for more security, but it certainly harmed the security of this report, as the change broke many tools including the WP:5000 reporting system on which this report is based. The brilliant User:West.andrew.g has now fixed that report, as well as the other cool projects on which he works including the WP:STiki vandalism tool and WP:TOPRED report showing the most-visited red links on a weekly basis. We are now backfilling the three Top 25 reports that have been delayed by these technical difficulties, so please see Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 14 to 20, 2015 posted by Serendipodous for the week immediately prior to this report. And Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 7 to 13, 2015 will be coming soon as well.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of June 21 to 27, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	Flags of the Confederate States of America		1,997,063	It took the horrific act of the Charleston church shooting on June 17 to refocus the attention of South Carolina politicians and public at large to the fact that South Carolina was still flying the battle flag of the Confederate States of America near their state capitol. This flag causes a lot of controversy in the United States, though its general modern use as a symbol of racist oppression of blacks is undeniable. Will the flag of ISIS/ISIL be similarly used in the Middle East one hundred years hence? In any event, on June 22, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and other politicians called for the flag to be taken down, so it appears that the flag will be officially lowered soon.
2	Jurassic World		1,413,831	Down from #1 last week. In this era of duelling gargantuas, when Hollywood risks $200 million budgets on a whim and triple-digit opening weekends are a seasonal event, the financial achievements of the first Jurassic Park seem somewhat pallid. And yet, it was for a time the most successful film ever made, and more importantly, formed the prototype for the modern blockbuster; massive, frontloaded opening weekend, brushfire earnings and supercharged ancillaries. And now, after Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron made substantial dents in the US GDP, Jurassic World has arrived to show that its aging franchise is perfectly capable of holding its own in today's hostile environment. Its $208 million opening weekend was the biggest of all time, though at just $1 million above the previous record set by Marvel's The Avengers back in 2012, it wasn't exactly a killing blow. Still, it managed to also claim the highest second weekend gross of all time as well, showing that it may well be on the way to repeating the performance of its ancestor. Today, the Jurassic franchise is just one monster among many, but it has shown that it still has the right to reign.
3	2015 Copa América		1,119,824	Up from #7 and 991,000 views last week. South America's quadrennial international soccer competition got underway on June 11. The final will be held on July 4.
4	Ruby Rose		973,290	The Australian model and actress has been in the media thanks to her role in the new series of Orange is the New Black and her public challenging of traditional gender roles. She came out as a lesbian at the age of 12 and identifies as genderfluid. Her androgynous appearance has led many straight women to declare an attraction to her, which has angered some gay activists, who argue that homosexuality is not a choice.
5	World's littlest skyscraper		904,962	On June 22 and 23, folks on Reddit learned about this small building in Texas which was built in a 1919 confidence scheme. Investors fat with oil money thought they were getting in on a 480-foot building, but the plans clearly showed it was to be 480 INCHES. And so it was.
6	Batman: Arkham Knight		826,703	This action-adventure video game was released on June 23, and has received critical acclaim, though a buggy PC port led to the game being suspended from Steam, to much consumer rage.
7	Orange Is the New Black		696,668	The third season of the women-in-prison TV series premièred in its entirety on Netflix on June 11.
8	2015 FIFA Women's World Cup		632,971	This site caters mainly to the English-speaking world, and despite having invented soccer (and most other major team sports come to that) the Anglosphere hasn't had much to sing about as far as that sport is concerned. Until now. I'm playing crystal ball here a bit, but this marks the first time both the English and American national teams have reached the World Cup semi-finals, something the English men's team hasn't done since 1990 and the US men's side hasn't done since 1930. Here's hoping they inspire their nations enough for them to start taking women's football seriously.
9	James Horner		601,956	This American film composer, who scored popular films including blockbusters Aliens, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Braveheart, Titanic and Avatar, died on June 23 when his airplane crashed in Los Padres National Forest in California.
10	True Detective (TV series)		592,368	The second season of this American crime drama television series debuted on June 21. The whole new cast includes Colin Farrell (pictured at left).
11	Inside Out (2015 film)		581,437	The latest Pixar film was released on June 19 to strong critical acclaim. When I first heard of the premise it sounded like a stretch, but critics are praising its unique concept and poignant subject matter.
12	Deaths in 2015		554,960	The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died.
13	2015 NBA draft	N/A	491,919	This year's NBA draft was held on June 25. Karl-Anthony Towns from Kentucky was the first overall pick, taken by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
14	Tang dynasty		489,284	The Tang Dynasty of 7th to 10th century China had a functioning system of natural gas pipelines constructed from bamboo, as learned in a Reddit thread this week.
15	Charleston church shooting		454,447	It is a bit of a mystery why this recent tragedy is so low on the report. It may be related to name changes in the article in its early days.
16	Jurassic Park (film)		427,968	The first in the Jurassic series was lifted by the success of Jurassic World.
17	Chris Pratt		425,929	The former Parks and Recreation star cemented his rise to Hollywood stardom after making a splash with Guardians of the Galaxy by securing a lead role in Jurassic World.
18	Game of Thrones		425,728	The finale of this highly polarising season aired on June 14. The show must now navigate uncharted territory, as George R. R. Martin's text cannot guide them. Maybe he will actually manage to publish his next book this year. Yeah, and maybe Jon Snow is really dead.
19	List of Orange Is the New Black episodes		402,772	See #7.
20	Terminator Genisys		396,009	Speaking of being back, so is Arnold Schwarzenegger, in yet another Terminator movie, this one debuting on July 1. Though if the critics are anything to go by, he won't be saying it again soon.
21	Jordan Spieth		395,860	The American golfer won the 2015 U.S. Open on June 21, the first golfer to win the Masters an U.S. Open back-to-back since Tiger Woods did it in 2002.
22	Confederate States of America		381,794	See #1, #15.
23	ABCD 2		378,681	The sequel to ABCD: Any Body Can Dance, this Indian dance film debuted on June 19.
24	Chris Kyle		374,852	An article of generally continuing popularity.
25	Charles Whitman		361,869	Whitman was a mass murderer who killed 14 people at the University of Texas at Austin on August 1, 1966. This article saw a spike in popularity on June 21–22, due to attention from reddit.

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 also 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. 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.