Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-12-24/Traffic report

Traffic report

Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga (November 18 to 24, December 2 to 8 and December 9 to 15) and OZOO (November 25 to December 1).

I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana (November 18 to 24)

Narcos is back, only this time in Mexico (#13), and this means Netflix users are sorely tempted to pause their binge-watching and learn more about the drug lords (#1, #10, #23) and their victims (#12). The streaming service even got the latest Coen brothers film (#15), although on Wikipedia it did not garner as many viewers as films in theaters, about Queen (#2, #16, #25), A Kind of Magic (#5, #18), and someone who will Spread Your Wings and Gonna Fly Now (#21). Regular TV also leads to extra entries regarding a British reality show (#9, #19, #22) and the latest WWE event (#11). And in spite of being Thanksgiving (#6, #17) — followed by the usual shopping sprees (#8) — some people instead had a week where they were hardly thankful for: a rapper got arrested (#3), a missionary joined the never-leaving death list (#14) for trying to convert an hostile and isolated tribe (#4, #7), some European footballers fell short in their latest tournament (#20), and Trump got into the usual problems (#24).

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo	1,710,658	The currently imprisoned drug lord who formed the Guadalajara Cartel, also known as El Padrino ("The Godfather") and who due to his declining health was transferred from a maximum security prison to a medium one. Maybe he'll be allowed to watch how Diego Luna (pictured) portrays him in Narcos: Mexico (#13).
2	Freddie Mercury	1,701,291	Get your party gown, get your pigtail down, get your heart beating baby! The acclaimed frontman of Queen (#16) continues pretty high on the list due to the continuing popularity of biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (#25), and the yearly views of his Wikipedia article approach 19 million, placing him in-between the Queen of England and the King of Wakanda among the year's most popular.
3	6ix9ine	1,237,012	While planning to release his debut album Dummy Boy, this rapper who wears some horrifying grills was arrested for racketeering and firearms charges.
4	Sentinelese	1,170,303	This isolated tribe who inhabit an island (#7) in India's Bay of Bengal entered the news after they possibly killed an American missionary who decided to convert them.
5	Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald	1,117,309	It's now been 17 years since the first Harry Potter movie (...man, I'm old), and I keep on seeing them during opening day. The Crimes of Grindelwald (who, as played by Johnny Depp, appears on the left) is unfortunately the least satisfying of the bunch, overstuffed with subplots that made the pacing problems of its predecessor (#18) even worse, and some questionable twists and reveals. It is making money nevertheless, with $465.6 million worldwide so far, meaning it might soon surpass our #25.
6	Thanksgiving	1,024,611	Every November, the United States (#17) celebrates their beloved holiday by gathering at Grandma's, overeating, downing antacids and even taking time to learn about the holiday on Wikipedia. And the following day, there's a shopping spree (#8).
7	North Sentinel Island	980,170	The Indian government keeps its distance from this island and even prohibits travel to it, as they know the locals (#4) have rejected, often violently, any contact with the outside world. Missouri missionary John Allen Chau still missed the memo, traveled illegally there with the help of some fishermen, and his attempt at converting the Sentinelese only resulted in his own death.
8	Black Friday (shopping)	880,839	The day after Thanksgiving retailers claim is the beginning of the holiday season. Long lines, discounts, hard hits on your credit rating and leftovers are on the day's agenda. It is a shopaholic's favorite day of the year despite the fact that they will be paying off their credit card debt until July 2020.
9	Anne Hegerty	874,054	In my country, we take subcelebrities and take them to a farm; in the UK, instead they head to the jungle in the amusingly titled I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, where one of the contestants is Ms. Hegerty, primarily famous for asking questions in the game show The Chase.
10	Rafael Caro Quintero	794,238	A co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel, although unlike our #1 he is currently on the run, having vanished ever since being freed from jail on 2013. In Narcos: Mexico (#13), he's played by Tenoch Huerta Mejía.

Hail to the Chief (November 25 to December 1)

The top story of the week of November 25 to December was the death of former President of the United States George H. W. Bush. Second place was the release of new Indian film 2.0, and third was the death of SpongeBob SquarePants creator, Stephen Hillenburg. Further down the list, a number of the subjects of Netflix's Narcos: Mexico were in the list, as were the lead pugilists of Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury and a motley crew of musicians, TV personalities, and Baroque painters.

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	George H. W. Bush	1,644,902	George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, died on November 30 at the age of 94. Bush was President from 1989 to 1993, as well as being Vice President for eight years prior to that. During his time in the White House, Bush signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and involved the US in the First Gulf War.
2	2.0 (film)	1,634,758	With a budget of ₹543 crore (US$76 million), Tamil sci-fi film 2.0, released on 29 November, is the most expensive Indian film of all time. A sequel to 2010's Enthiran, the film sees Rajinikanth (pictured) reprise the roles of Dr. Vaseegaran and Chitti, alongside Akshay Kumar and Amy Jackson. The film, which has received positive reviews, earned ₹117.34 crore (US$16 million) worldwide on its first day, the second highest ever for an Indian film after old Top 25 favourite Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.
3	Stephen Hillenburg	1,324,217	Stephen Hillenburg, creator of the long running Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, died on November 26 at the age of 57. Hillenburg served as showrunner of the aquatic animation from debut in 1999 to The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004, as well as doing the story for the 2015 The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. He revealed in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease, motor neurone disease), and died from complications from that disease this week.
4	Freddie Mercury	1,201,579	The legendary Queen (#19) front man remains in the list with the continued popularity of the biopic based on him, Bohemian Rhapsody.
5	Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo	1,059,989	Mexican drug lord Félix Gallardo, who formed the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s, is a primary subject of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico (#25); in which he is played by Diego Luna (pictured). Félix Gallardo, also known as El Padrino (The Godfather), with his cartel, at one point controlled almost all drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border.
6	6ix9ine	991,765	Daniel Hernandez, or "six-ix nine-ine", as I presume his stage name is supposed to be pronounced, released his debut album, Dummy Boy on November 27. Professional reviews for the album have leaned towards the negative. The album had been delayed from the original release date of November 23 following Hernandez's November 18 arrest on charges including conspiracy to murder and armed robbery, charges for which he is currently being held in custody without bail pending trial.
7	Deaths in 2018	725,584	💀💀 It happens to us all 💀💀
8	George W. Bush	718,028	George H.W. Bush's (#1) eldest son, GWB was President of the United States himself from 2001 to 2009.
9	Sentinelese	616,432	The indigenous Sentinelese people, who inhabit the North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in India, are considered to be one of the world's last uncontacted people. They are known to be extremely hostile to outsiders, as demonstrated with the death of American missionary John Allen Chau on 17 November, killed by the islanders while attempting to convert them to Christianity. Indian officials abandoned attempts to recover the body on 28 November, due to a risk of conflict between investigators and islanders.
10	North Sentinel Island	563,653

Reading Around the Bush (December 2 to 8)

George H. W. Bush died on a Saturday, so the following week still had lots of people searching for what the former U.S. President did, and led him to repeat as the top article while inspiring half the articles on this Top 25 (13, because counting the never-leaving death list as the 14th is a stretch), including George's dead wife, all his offspring (including another White House occupant and a daughter who died in her infancy), a daughter in-law, and the guy who he was VP for. Otherwise, we have India giving lots of money (#25) to 2.0 (#3) and seeing celebrities also spending a similar fortune to get married (#4, #5), the UK searching for a celebrity in the jungle (#18) with a famous mom (#20), three guys who returned from last week (#10, #11, #19), and another who'll probably take a while to leave (#22).

For the week of December 2 to 8, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	George H. W. Bush	4,744,951	All the commotion for the death and state funeral of the 41st President of the United States leads him to repeat as #1. Along with the Gulf War, NAFTA and "Read my lips: no new taxes", the other notable thing about Bush's government was Dana Carvey impersonating him on Saturday Night Live (Bush himself was a fan).
2	George W. Bush	1,996,037	#1's oldest son, who like him was also President of the United States, started a war in Iraq, and inspired great SNL moments.
3	2.0 (film)	1,977,120	Big-budget sequels to sci-fi hits are not exclusive to Hollywood anymore, as shown by the most expensive Indian movie ever, 2.0, a follow-up to 2010's Enthiran, featuring robots (such as the gynoid in the left, played by Amy Jackson), mad scientists and huge battles. The film is now the highest-grossing Indian film of the year.
4	Priyanka Chopra	1,948,305	India and exorbitant expenditures again, namely one of its greatest stars marrying the youngest of the Jonas Brothers in a five day long party that took place in a palace and had a massive wedding cake.
5	Nick Jonas	1,690,575
6	Jimmy Carter	1,545,236	Not only is Carter now the oldest living U.S. president, but he has actually outlived the two guys who occupied the White House after him (#1 and #23), even surviving a cancer a few years back. And if Carter lives until April of next year, the peanut farmer will surpass Bush as the president with the longest lifespan!
7	Bob Dole	1,010,109	Like our #1, Dole lost a presidential election to Bill Clinton. And during Bush's funeral, the 95 year old politician stood up from his wheelchair and saluted the coffin, showing he takes paying his respects very seriously.
8	Barbara Bush	928,464	Seeing his wife of seven decades die back in April certainly worsened the health of our #1. At least they're together again.
9	Pauline Robinson Bush	892,161	The saddest story in the Bush family, enough to inspire touching cartoons, "Robin" - the second child of the family, after our #2 - died before her fourth birthday of a leukemia. Her remains are now in the George Bush Presidential Library along with those of her parents (#1, #8).
10	Freddie Mercury	828,583	The legendary frontman of Queen, whose biopic Bohemian Rhapsody is still attracting crowds. And adequately to the week's biggest subject, he once sung: "Hot dog, I say, Cool it man I don't wanna be the President of America!"

India controls report (December 9 to 15)

The second most populous country on Earth has more than 10% of its 1 billion people speaking English, so no wonder sometimes the Top 25 Report gets extremely Indian. Local blockbusters (#3, #14), marriages of local rich people (#10), local important people (#7)... and if you wanna get technical, there's a Parsi-descendant rock legend at #8. Still, the list is topped by YouTube's "hall of dishonor", now led by the video service's own YouTube Spotlight channel as millions of people showed their disdain for the latest YouTube Rewind. Some superheroes are also present: DC Comics has an Aquaman movie (#5, portrayed by #2, married to #4), while Marvel gives an animated Spider-Man (#9). That obituary that just won't leave (#6) completes the top 10.

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	List of most-disliked YouTube videos	2,098,077	YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind, the latest installment of the video service's yearly recap, was so underwhelming (too much Fortnite, not enough YouTubers people actually know) that it got showered with thumbs down and less than a week later, the 10 million dislikes (now 14) were enough for the "honor" of taking the top of this list from Justin Bieber (music videos are most of the list, including complaining about big names releasing annoying songs, YouTubers trying to be musicians, and dreadful stuff such as "Friday", Crazy Frog and The Gummy Bear Song). For curiosity's sake, the one with the biggest dislike percentage is a singer from my country doing a call to arms against the crazy man who was running for president, leading to backlash from "Bolsominions" who guaranteed Brazil will have a rough 2019.
2	Jason Momoa	1,946,897	If people stop making jokes about Aquaman being a ridiculous excuse for a superhero, you can probably thank his portrayer in the DC Cinematic Universe, who made him a drunk and boisterous barbarian, basically a G-rated Khal Drogo who breathes underwater and talks to fish. Momoa stars in the hero's solo movie (#5) which is already a critical and commercial hit.
3	2.0 (film)	1,088,225	2.0, a follow-up to 2010's Enthiran, featuring robots (such as the gynoid in the left, played by Amy Jackson), mad scientists and huge battles, is both the most expensive Indian movie ever (₹543 crore, or US$76 million) and the highest-grossing Indian production of the year with ₹800 crore ($100 million, an impressive quantity even on Hollywood), making it climb positions on the list of highest-grossing Indian films.
4	Lisa Bonet	961,550	The actress wife of #2, with whom he has two children. Commons doesn't have a picture of her, so here's Bonet's previous relationship and the result of it, Lenny Kravitz and their daughter Zoe.
5	Aquaman (film)	932,125	One week after debuting in China and making heaps of money, the DC Atlantean superhero played by #2 hit most international markets including mine (though the United States debut is due this week), so I can attest it is easily as fun as Wonder Woman.
6	Deaths in 2018	719,897	"Always look on the bright side of death Just before you draw your terminal breath"
7	Shaktikanta Das	662,729	It's been one of those weeks with a lot of Indian people. Mr. Das shows up for being named the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
8	Freddie Mercury	660,927	Rami Malek now has a Golden Globe nomination for playing the iconic Queen frontman, whose run in our list basically screams "Don't Stop Me Now!"
9	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	634,766	Sony Pictures tries to makes up for unleashing Venom into the world with a Spider-Man animated film that decides to team the Webhead with all alternate versions of himself, including Spider-Gwen and Spider-Ham. Reviews were glowing and the film topped the U.S. box office, though the country of this writer only gets it next month.
10	Mukesh Ambani	618,373	This Indian billionaire saw his daughter Isha marry the son of a fellow billionaire in festivities that cost $100 million and had guests ranging from Bollywood stars to Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé. It probably looked like something out of Crazy Rich Asians.

Exclusions

These lists exclude 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 (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% 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 Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.
Exo (band) and BTS (band): the Billboard Social 50 might accept the EXO-Ls and the BTS Army checking the pages of these K-pop groups many times daily for their rankings, but we won't condone this gaming of the system.

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24 December 2018 (all comments)

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Under the Jason Momoa box, it claims that the film Aquaman is a "critical and commercial hit." Metacritic: 55; Rotten Tomatoes: 63. That's a critical hit? - kosboot (talk) 18:37, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Defensible. Variety said it got "decent reviews". ☆ Bri (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd thought for a while that the Yellow Jackets page might hit a million views this month. Nope, even 800K might be a push, now. Such small, pesky fry! Dead presidents! Bollywood! That's what we the Signpost readers want to read about, right?

I think this page could be more interesting if you looked through the Top 5000 from time to time. We could have inter-city popularity battles that might tell us something interesting, e.g.

Last Week on Wikipedia: Paris v. Washington

source: Top 5000

Rank	Article
378	Paris Hilton
693	George Washington
836	Denzel Washington
1278	Washington, D.C.
1835	Paris Saint-Germain F.C.
1913	Paris Jackson
2033	Paris
2834	Kerry Washington
2886	Edmonds station (Washington)
4226	Washington (state)
4362	John David Washington
4739	Paris Paris

Trump v. Clinton finishes 13-4 in reader interest, but I'm far too lazy to mark that one up. ~ 🐝 ~ SashiRolls ^{t · c} 20:52, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So you're saying we should include things that don't make the list criteria (traffic/pageviews) but we judge to be important nonetheless? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:10, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'm saying it's a traffic report. I notice that the format of this humor page ("Top-25 report: This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Please do not take it too seriously.") hasn't changed in a long time. That's reassuring for the morning commute, of course, and is being done valiantly well. But, sure, there could be *all* sorts of zaniness based on the top 5000. Trivia: who was the reading public more curious about this week: Dick Cheney or Dr. Seuss? ~ 🐝 ~ SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:25, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We're simply posting whatever gets popular during the week (it is the purpose of the WP:TOP25!), with added comments to make things fun to read. Next edition might have a change, given we're preparing the yearly report. Otherwise, only huge occasions might break the format (such as that breakdown following the 2016 election). But your suggestion is great for the actual Humor section (@Barbara (WVS): do you agree?). igordebraga ≠ 00:31, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What do you me to agree with? Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 20:34, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also worth noting that this Traffic Report is not penned specifically for the Signpost. Rather, it is written on its own merits to catelogue the 25 articles to receive the most views in a week on Wikipedia. This helps to further explain the difference between a pure traffic report (which could operate as you suggest) and the Top 25, which operates independently and is adapted for the purpose of the Signpost, and so paves its own path (and as Igordebraga points out, the name broadly dictates what we do there). Hope this helps, Stormy clouds (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! The short-fingered vulgarian squatting in the White House failed to make any of the three Top 25 Lists! Here's hoping he stays off these lists until his removal from office. -- llywrch (talk) 09:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost is looking for new talent.

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