Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 5 to 11, 2014)

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

Now introducing ... mobile data: As reported in the Signpost last month, mobile views have not been historically included in the raw page count data provided by the Wikimedia Foundation. That has caused stats.grok.se as well the WP:5000 report on which the Top 25 is based to lack that data. And this had led to a significant under count in total page views, as mobile views now account for about 30% of Wikipedia traffic. However, we are pleased to report that the WP:5000 has now been updated to include mobile views, including a column reflecting the percentage of views coming from mobile devices. This week's Top 25 is the first using the additional view data.

We've noticed two primary effects from the inclusion of mobile view data so far. First, and most obviously, view counts are up. This week's #1, Ebola virus disease, had almost 4.3 million views, the best showing of #1 article by far since the incredible 9.1 million which Robin Williams received after his death in August. To simply make the Top 25 this week, it took 484,791 views -- a big jump from only 240,000 views last week.

Second, we can also see that the percentage of mobile views an article receives varies by the type of article it is, as well as the source of its popularity. This week's #3, Moose, became popular due to a Reddit thread, but only had 26% mobile views. Perhaps that general percentage will prove to hold true over time for Reddit popularity -- #6 this week, Age disparity in sexual relationships, was also made popular by a Reddit thread and had 26.5% mobile views.

Meanwhile, this week's #1 (Ebola virus disease) had 54.4% mobile views and #2 Ebola virus hit 64%. Contrast those numbers to this week's #10, Thor Heyerdahl, made popular by a Google Doodle. Only 15.7% of those views were from mobile sources. And Deaths in 2014, an article which often makes the Top 10, was reduced to #23 this week with only 19.9% mobile views. One might suppose that the very lengthy list-like (and sobering) nature of that article may make it less popular to read on the go. We'll continue to review how the inclusion of mobile data affects trends in article popularity.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of 5-11 October, 2014, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Ebola virus disease	4,298,499	The death of Thomas Eric Duncan on October 8, the first person to die in the United States from Ebola virus disease, has only continued to increase attention to this subject, which is #1 for the second week in a row.
2	Ebola virus	998,891	See #1.
3	Moose	966,086	This week Reddit learned that "the Killer Whale is a natural predator of the Moose." The sentence which piqued their curiosity remarks that killer whales "are the moose's only known marine predator as they have been known to prey on them when swimming between islands out of North America's Northwest Coast."
4	American Horror Story: Freak Show	956,565	The fourth season of the American Horror Story series debuted on 8 October 2014. Series co-creator Ryan Murphy (pictured at left) directed the first episode of the season.
5	Gone Girl (film)	953,715	This 2014 American mystery film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike (both pictured at left) was released in the United States on 3 October.
6	Age disparity in sexual relationships	864,448	This article owes it popularity to a Reddit thread. That this subject might be a topic of interest is not surprising to anyone who peruses the incredibly long List of films featuring romances of significant age disparity listed in the "see also" section.
7	Annabelle (film)	853,990	This 2014 American horror film was released on 3 October, and stars Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, and Alfre Woodard (pictured at left).
8	Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa	826,103	See #1 and #2.
9	Facebook	798,797	A perennially popular article.
10	Thor Heyerdahl	779,723	A Google Doodle honored what would have been 100th birthday of this Norwegian adventurer known for his 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition.
11	Gone Girl (novel)	713,506	The 2012 novel by Gillian Flynn is the basis for the film appearing at #5 this week.
12	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant	711,952	The exploits of ISIL remain well-covered in the news.
13	American Horror Story	676,857	See #4. Brad Falchuk (pictured) is the other co-creator of this horror television series.
14	Steven Jay Russell	779,723	Reddit took note of one Russell's many colorful escapes from prison. Russell is currently incarcerated at the Polunksy prison (pictured) in Texas.
15	Bang Bang!	652,487	This Hindi action film, a remake of the 2010 American movie Knight and Day, was released on 2 October. Katrina Kaif (pictured) plays one of the leading roles.
16	Malala Yousafzai	614,256	On 10 October 2014, it was announced that the Yousafzai was a winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize (the youngest ever recipient at age 17), an honor she shared with Kailash Satyarthi (#25).
17	Google	609,470	Always a fairly popular article.
18	Gotham (TV series)	460,188	This American TV series debuted on 22 September 2014, and is in the Top 25 for a third straight week.
19	The Flash (2014 TV series)	569,947	This new American TV series based on the comics character of the same name debuted earlier this month. Grant Gustin (pictured) plays the lead role.
20	Haider (film)	547,657	This Hindi drama film was released on 2 October. Shahid Kapoor (pictured) plays the title role. The movie is a modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet set amidst the armed Indian-administered insurgency-hit Kashmir conflicts of 1995.
21	Anencephaly	533,231	Anencephaly is a terrible birth defect where a fetus develops without a major portion of a brain and skull. A viral news story this week about a Pennsylvania couple's child who died a few hours after being born with the defect is the likely source of this article's popularity.
22	Stephen Collins	527,224	Led by TMZ, troubling allegations arose this week regarding this American actor and alleged past sexual abuse of a minor, who is in the midst of an apparently nasty divorce from actress Faye Grant.
23	Deaths in 2014	519,708	The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article.
24	Jan Hooks	507,477	This American comedian, best known for being on Saturday Night Live from 1986-1991, died in New York on 9 October.
25	Kailash Satyarthi	484,791	On 10 October 2014, it was announced that Indian children's rights activist Satyarthi was a winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, an honor he shared with Malala Yousafzai(#16).

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). There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the raw 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.

Undefined. A common error message in computing, these are automated visits by a buggy computer program.
Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
Online shopping: Massive view spike commenced on 6 Sept without explanation.
Rock music. Ditto.
English alphabet and Alphabet. No legitimate reason for recent rise in views.
NASA Helios: A single misbehaving user has been flooding this.
Payday loan: A scammer attempting to bilk the desperate.
Script kiddie: bots
Rich Gang: a redirect from a large number of null referrers

Specific exclusions this week: (note that mobile views of 0% is also strong evidence of spammers, which is the case among all these entries)