Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 27 to May 3, 2014)[edit]

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

Summary: The first week of May is home to many festivals, from May Day and International Workers' Day to Cinco de Mayo. The viewing figures for those articles are, as usual, lower than last year's, with our readership focused on more transitory issues, such as celebrity death, TV listings, and a juicy racist scandals.

For the week of April 27 to May 3, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Views	Notes
1	-	-	Donald Sterling	2,155,108	What's more likely to generate watercooler conversation than a racist outburst by a privileged aged white guy? A nonsensical racist outburst. If one does not wish to "associate with black people", as he put it, owning a basketball team is probably not the way to go. Nor, for that matter, is having a black girlfriend. And if he doesn't want black people "brought to his games," one wonders how he deals with his team's roster, which currently consists of 12 black people and two Caucasians. He's been banned from the NBA, though that is unlikely to affect his revenue stream.
2	8	3	The Amazing Spider-Man 2	618,326	For a sequel to a reboot no one asked for, this movie is proving very popular with the public; after finally opening in its home territory, it scored $35 million on its first day, on top of $155 million it has already earned overseas. It's not surprising that this was released in foreign markets before its home territory; the original Spider-Man made $822 million worldwide, with the domestic and international grosses split roughly 50/50. The rebooted Amazing Spider-Man (this film's predecessor) made $752 million worldwide, but with international grosses now comprising 2/3 the total. This radical shift in Hollywood's biosphere has taken place in just a decade, and it is already altering hunting strategies, for good or ill.
3	-	-	Bob Hoskins	593,143	Much loved and respected actor who passed away on 29 April. Although he played the quintessential well'ard Cockney in films like The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa, Hoskins was perhaps ironically best known for playing the American PI pastiche Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
4	4	13	Amazon.com	538,283	This article has been veering wildly (and suspiciously) around the view graph for several weeks, but at least now its presence on the list has a reason: Amazon Fire TV; a digital streaming device to watch online content on a HDTV. How it distinguishes itself from the three or four other such devices currently on the market is a matter of some dispute.
5	-	2	May Day	499,206	Before it was International Workers's Day (see below), May Day, aka May 1, was a fount of odd and esoteric traditions.
6	2	27	Game of Thrones	492,768	New seasons of this immensely popular show always draw people to Wikipedia.
7	6	58	Deaths in 2014	422,311	The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article.
8	-	-	Man-Thing	407,317	Marvel Comics' monster-man, to whom DC's Swamp Thing, debuting 18 months later, would bear an uncanny resemblance, got some press after it was revealed he would appear in an upcoming episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
9	-	2	Shakira	372,839	The Colombian singer with the famously swiveling hips had a number of encounters with the media this week; between a being the subject of a popular Reddit thread, being upstaged by Ariana Grande at the iHeartRadio Music Awards (see below), and posting a photo of her adorable toddler Milan on her Twitter feed, she's certainly made a splash amongst the cyber-chatterati, whether she intended to or not.
10	7	5	Game of Thrones (season 4)	371,364	This is the page with the plot synopses for each episode.
11	9	4	List of Game of Thrones episodes	337,680	The episode list is probably used to look up air dates.
12	11	68	Facebook	307,856	A perennially popular article.
13	-	28	United States	302,899	The 8th most popular article of 2013 and the 3rd most popular Wikipedia article between 2010 and 2012. Even when not on the list, this article is 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.
14	-	2	International Workers' Day	291,900	The date coincides with May Day and dates back to the Socialists and Communists of the Second International. Even though Communism is somewhat passée these days, it seems interest in the day hasn't waned.
15	12	9	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.	286,070	Joss Whedon's extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television returned on 1 April after a three-week hiatus.
16	-	-	Emma Stone	276,871	It is interesting that the actress who played Gwen Stacy is the one element of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 other than the film itself to appear in the top 25. Even her real-life boyfriend and nominal star of the show, Andrew Garfield, didn't break the top 25.
17	15	39	List of Bollywood films of 2014	271,099	An established staple of the top 25 returns.
18	-	-	Iggy Azalea	264,780	The Australian/American rapper released her debut album, The New Classic on 21 April and sold 52,000 copies in its first week.
19	-	3	Cinco de Mayo	256,974	One of the most self-explanatory article spikes on Wikipedia ever, this celebration of Mexican-American culture (originally meant to commemorate a Mexican victory over the French) occurred, conveniently, on May 5.
20	-	-	Adam Silver	254,106	The just-appointed Commissioner of the NBA became something of an overnight hero when he held a strident press conference banning Donald Sterling (see #1) from associating with the NBA.
21	22	46	YouTube	248,990	A perennially popular article.
22	-	2	Pope John Paul II	241,712	The much-beloved last Pope but one became a saint this week, leading to some slightly whiffy press coverage concerning the canonizations remarkably short turnaround.
23	-	-	Alla Rakha	236,918	The tabla player and frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar got a Google Doodle on what would have been his 95th birthday on 29 April.
24	-	-	Star Wars Episode VII	236,774	Disney's attempt to resurrect the Star Wars franchise released its casting decisions this week, but not the characters they would be playing, leading to mass speculation.
25	-	-	George Clooney	234,593	Surprisingly, the megastar actor/director has never appeared on this list until now, the week he declared himself off the market. I guess it takes the shattering of a million girls' dreams to drum up the necessary attention.

Exclusions[edit]

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), 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 I can't find a reason for an article to be included doesn't mean there isn't one; conversely, 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.

- Java/JOP: Since both of these articles are tied (verbally at least) to the programming language, it seems likely that this is a bot searching for that.
- IPv6: I have to face facts; I allowed this into the top 25 for months as it is the kind of issue that would appeal to web denizens (ala Bitcoin) but its insane popularity is just too high explain by human interest alone. It's getting help.
- Ddd: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
- History of Bălţi: There is simply no logical way to explain the sudden rise of this hyper-obscure article except as the result of a traffic-checking botnet, ala cat anatomy
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Lycos: The geriatric web portal is back.
- Climatic Research Unit email controversy: And it's back. It says something about this manufactroversy that someone feels the need to shove it repeatedly down our throats, as if that were the best way to get people to believe it.

Specific exclusions this week:

- Jan Paweł: The Polish name for John Paul, aka Pope John Paul II, is one of several Polish names that have flooded the list over the years but which, thanks to bad scripting, usually appear as redlinks.
- Women's lacrosse/Acute radiation syndrome: both had inexplicable one-day spikes on 27 April.
- LDRSHIP: One day spike on 28 April. For the record, it's pronounced "leadership" and represents the values of the US Army.