WP:TOP25

Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 8 to 14, 2013)

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Summary: Unlucky dates are the theme this week, as Friday the 13th fell just after the anniversary of 9/11; Yom Kippur, the holiest date in the Jewish calendar and itself not a stranger to tragedy, also fell this week. Breaking Bad's final season continued to draw attention, while interest in Miley Cyrus's youthful exuberance is fading only slowly.

For the week of September 8–14, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most accessed pages* were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	-	-	September 11 attacks		991,522	Unsurprisingly, the devastating attack's anniversary dominated the conversation in the English-speaking world this week.
2	3	36	Facebook		645,950	A perennially popular article
3	6	3	Twerking		627,941	The new term for waggling your bottom onstage continues to be a point of interest.
4	5	6	Breaking Bad		625,600	The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11.
5	-	2	Miley Cyrus		435,952	The former teenybopper graduated into adulthood in the manner customary to her profession: doing something in public to offend morally conservative people. The heightened publicity has secured her career for the immediate future at least.
6	19	5	List of Breaking Bad episodes	List	420,340	People will turn to this page to keep up with the show.
7	15	4	Breaking Bad (season 5)	List	414,055	As above, people want to keep up with this show.
8	-	-	Now You See Me (film)		383,179	Despite becoming a surprise hit at the box office, and dominating its weekend, this film never had a substantial Wikipedia presence, until now; 14 weeks after its initial release. The reasons why are not entirely clear, but it seems to be a combination of the film's strong release on Blu-ray, together with the announcement of an impending sequel.
9	13	46	Deaths in 2013	List	361,208	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
10	-	-	Friday the 13th		357,661	The supposedly inauspicious date (which apparently has only been inauspicious for about 150 years) probably remains high in the public's awareness because each month has roughly one chance in seven of having one. The fact that one occurred two days after 9/11 this year arguably only diminished its negligible auspice.
11	23	34	Google		321,010	A perennially popular article.
12	18	17	List of Bollywood films of 2013	List	316,564	An established staple of the top 25.
13	-	-	Grand Theft Auto V		315,297	The bete noire of the anti-videogaming crowd returns on September 17. To say this is anticipated is a mild understatement. Its predecessor is the most critically acclaimed video game of all time. Seriously.
14	-	-	Wikipedia		290,728	Oddly enough, this is our first appearance in the top 25 since the start of the monitoring project. You'd think the encyclopedia would appear more often, but then, perhaps the fact that people are using it to look up other things, rather than itself, is something of a compliment.
15	-	-	Rafael Nadal		288,193	The world no. 2 tennis player not only won the US Open this week but also led Spain into the Davis Cup by beating Ukraine in the doubles playoffs.
16	-	-	Yom Kippur		285,629	The holiest date in the Jewish calendar sits rather awkwardly next to the other dates on this list, but then, it now has its own sombre commemoration.
17	-	6	IPv6		284,867	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	1	2	Lil Wayne		279,337	The rapper released his latest album, Dedication 5, on September 1
19	-	-	2014 FIFA World Cup qualification		277,308	The global race to the finals of the world's most popular sporting event has actually been running since 2011, but kicked into high gear this month as the various world soccer federations neared the end of their qualifying runs. 207 national teams entered the race; to put that in perspective, there are only 254 recognised countries and territories on Earth. The total number of people on the planet who have not cheered their home side on for this tournament could probably fill a moderately-sized town.
20	-	2	Eminem		275,612	The rapper, in promoting his latest album (due in November), has made some rare appearances for the press, including a rather awkward interview during ESPN's Saturday Night Football
21	7	3	Syria		268,128	Despite the threat of a US entanglement in that country's brutal civil war appearing (for the moment) to recede, it continued to be a topic of interest this week.
22	-	-	Sons of Anarchy		260,596	The sixth season of this acclaimed TV drama about an outlaw motorcycle club premiered on September 10.
23	-	9	Attack on Titan		251,318	This anime series has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere, and so has been a constant presence in or near the Top 25 since its debut.
24	-	2	United States		250,538	A rarity in the top 25, but the 3rd most popular Wikipedia article between 2010–2012, and a perpetual bubble-under-er. Not really surprising that the country with by far the most English speakers would be the most popular on the English Wikipedia.
25	-	42	YouTube		235,621	Another perennially popular article

Almosts:

Bashar al-Assad (235,046 views); Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (234,358 views); September 11 (234,177 views)

Exclusions:

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please keep in mind that the explanations given for these articles' popularity are, fundamentally, guesses. Just because a plausible reason is found for a view spike, that doesn't mean it wasn't due to a bot.

There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the 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.
- 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.
- Lycos: the geriatric web portal seems to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason.
- May you live in interesting times: the ancient Chinese curse, which, as far as is known, is neither ancient nor Chinese, has been trending a lot recently, for reasons unknown.

Notes:

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 235,621. Last week: 291,642

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