Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 28 to October 4, 2014)

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Summary: The first case of the Ebola virus on US shores sent people into a tizzy, rushing to their keyboards to try and learn what they could. Despite Ebola being actually quite difficult to transmit, the news media readily drummed up the apocalypse from this single case. Overcome with anxiety, Wikipedia users returned to their safe havens; TV, video games, novels and celebrities.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of 28 September 4 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	1,153,294	This week, two weeks after an exasperated World Health Organization declared that the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, already the largest in history by far, was spiralling out of control, the first American case was identified in Texas. This naturally sent people a bit panicky, even though it is virtually impossible for anyone to spread Ebola before they're symptomatic.
2	Amal Alamuddin	1,129,602	A sizeable portion of the world's female population turned their furious gaze on this highly accomplished human rights lawyer, determined to ascertain whether she was truly good enough to take the most eligible bachelor on the planet away from them.
3	2014 Asian Games	577,311	The 2014 Asian Games, a pan-Asian sporting event held every four years, commenced its 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea on 19 September; the event will run through 4 October. The 2014 Games have 28 Olympic sports, as well as eight non-Olympic sports including baseball and sepak takraw (kick volleyball). The 2014 Asian Games medal table currently shows China with a runaway lead, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Kazakhstan.
4	On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog	571,290	This prescient 1993 cartoon from The New Yorker, which anticipated the rise of cyberstalking and virtual identity, gradually became an internet meme in its own right, as noted on a Reddit thread this week.
5	George Clooney	527,193	Sorry ladies, but the last bachelor star is now off the market, having married Amal Alamuddin (see above).
6	Gotham (TV series)	460,188	This American TV series is yet another reboot of the Batman franchise, and debuted on 22 September 2014.
7	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.	433,869	Marvel Studios' expansion of its cinematic universe into television returned for its second season on 23 September.
8	Gone Girl (novel)	418,892	David Fincher's hit movie spurred interest in the novel on which it is based.
9	Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor	409,547	This open world action adventure game set in JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth was the biggest launch ever for a game set in that universe.
10	Deaths in 2014	400,447	The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article.
11	Facebook	399,379	A perennially popular article.
12	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant	387,411	ISIL falls out of the Top 10 for the first time in seven weeks, despite the recent escalation in military action against it.
13	Google	366,478	Always a fairly popular article.
14	Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird	362,028	A leading candidate for the title of "coolest-looking plane in history", the SR-71 spy plane could travel at Mach 3 and fly at altitudes of 15 miles; high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. It could also record its entire flightpath, ensuring that it could prove it didn't violate another country's airspace, as noted in a thread on Reddit this week.
15	Gone Girl (film)	346,991	David Fincher's thriller adaptation, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, was the biggest hit of the week, earning $38 million in its first two days.
16	Kent (cigarette)	331,526	In 1952, in response to claims of smoking's carcinogenic effects, Kent brand cigarettes decided to protect its users – by adding an asbestos filter, as noted in another Reddit thread this week.
17	Ebola virus	286,823	The other article on this week's top topic.
18	Achatina fulica	286,128	Also known as the giant African land snail, it is one of the most invasive of invasive species, having colonised large areas of Asia and the Pacific and even reached the United States, where it has received top quarantine alert status. A small incursion of the species into Florida this week led to a flurry of interest.
19	Hong Kong	284,421	The rising tide of protest that greeted Beijing's attempt to rig their first popular vote has drawn international concern, along with uncertainty about how far the government is really willing to go.
20	List of Bollywood films of 2014	273,690	A regular visitor to the Top 25.
21	Annabelle (film)	269,832	This hastily-produced not-really-prequel to The Conjuring has not done well with critics (its Rotten Tomatoes rating is currently 32%) but almost managed to overtake Gone Girl as the top film this weekend.
22	Bang Bang!	253,941	This James Bond-esque action romance starring Hrithik Roshan (pictured) has broken several Bollywood box office records, having made INR1 billion ($16.3 million) in its first five days.
22	Derek Jeter	263,273	This very accomplished baseball player for the New York Yankees completed his 20th and final season in Major League Baseball in the United States. In his last at-bat in his final game on 28 September, Jeter hit a single off Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz. After being replaced by a pinch runner, he received a rare ovation from Red Sox fans as he exited the field.
23	Yom Kippur	247,884	The Jewish "Day of Atonement" occurs 10 days after Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), and involves fasting, repentance and prayer.
24	Jehovah's Witnesses	246,784	According to believers of this faith, Satan and his followers were cast down from Heaven on 1 October 1914; a fact noted on Reddit this week, 100 years later.
25	Ariana Grande	240,344	The singer remains a regular visitor to this list.

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.

Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
less (Unix): 800k requests a day from the same IP address.
Online shopping: Massive view spike commenced on 6 Sept without explanation.
Undefined. A common error message in computing, these are automated visits by a buggy computer program.
Ddd: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
Rock music. Ditto.
English alphabet and Alphabet. No legitimate reason for recent rise in views.
NASA Helios/NASA Pathfinder: A single misbehaving user has been flooding this.
Payday loan: A scammer attempting to bilk the desperate.
Hollow Body Guitar: Comes and goes.
Script kiddie: bots
Scotland, England, and Marriage: I will respect Milowent's sense of humour and assume this was indeed a joke. :-)

Specific exclusions this week:*

Heartbleed: Very artificial-looking two-day spike
Queen II: a single user in Bangladesh
Kyaraben: a single user in South Carolina
Phenolphthalein: a single user in Australia
Imagine (John Lennon song): spammer
Wildstrubel: spammer
List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge: spammer
Rich Gang: a redirect from a large number of null referrers
List of Bob's Burgers episodes: One-day spike on 2 October; three days before the season premiere. However, there was no tail off whatsoever, and the main article was nowhere near it.

^* determined by e.g. large numbers of hits from single IP addresses.