The Top 25 Report
Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 30 to July 6 2013) edit
← Last week's report – Next week's report →
Summary: This week has proved one thing; we have a lot to learn. So many articles had high views for no discernible reason that it became pointless to exclude them. If any of you have ideas as to from whence these oddities emerged, please let us know; we can always use new sources! Think of this then as our all view-spikes are created equal list; each given due prominence regardless of its creator or particular endowments.
For the week of June 30 to July 6, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Class Views Image Notes 1 1 3 Yahoo! 
3,087,818 
After becoming the most viewed Wikipedia article in over four months last week, its viewership actually increased this week, which has sent some alarm bells ringing that perhaps this site's page has been getting some artificial inflation. Purchasing Tumblr is all well and good, but it doesn't deserve this level of attention, surely. 2 - - Independence Day (United States) 
1,169,967 
A far more obvious object of interest for the week of July 4 (although technically American independence was declared on July 2nd, by which time the American Revolutionary War had already been going for more than a year, and not attained until February 3, 1783), the celebration of American independence is arguably the biggest summer festival in the English-speaking world (with the possible exception of Christmas in Australia) 3 - - Franz Kafka 
1,027,411 
The angsty German chronicler of authoritarian oppression, who essentially predicted the surreal horror of 20th century dictatorship, had both a Google Doodle and a main page appearance to celebrate his 130th birthday on July 3, leading to a massive spike in interest. 4 - 6 Arrow (TV series)
910,481 Why this TV series, which went off the air in May and won't return until October, would suddenly get a surge in views on July 1-2 is not clear. 5 - - Kendrick Lamar
885,387 
Compton-born rapper whose album good kid, m.A.A.d city won two awards at the BET Awards on June 30. 6 - - Li Shizhen
733,104 
The Chinese botanist and physician who wrote a comprehensive materia medica with nearly 1900 entries had a Google Doodle to celebrate his 495th birthday 7 - - Chikako Watanabe 
715,123 This Japanese singer has been a thorn in our side for weeks; her entry keeps spiking apparently at random. On any other list she'd be excluded but in this one, who's to argue? 8 8 26 Facebook
709,225 
A perennially popular article. 9 4 3 Edward Snowden
658,578 
The story of the international cause célèbre who blew the whistle on the NSA's domestic spying program becomes more gripping by the day. Denied a passport by the US government, he presumably remains trapped in Terminal E of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, possibly seeking asylum in Venezuela. Polls suggest Americans are still fairly divided on whether to treat this man as a hero or a traitor, which will only stimulate more debate and, likely, more Wikipedia views in future. 10 - - Amy Winehouse
626,641 
An exhibition of the life and possessions of the tragically short-lived singer (and member of the 27 Club) went on display at the Jewish Museum London on July 3. 11 - - Ah, Wilderness! (film)
551,371 The 1935 adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 4th of July-set play gained attention when it aired on TCM over the said weekend. 12 - - Latent inhibition
542,038 The term from Pavlovian classical conditioning (which basically says that things we've never seen before are more easily seen as meaningful than things we see every day) got a massive surge in views on July 2. 13 5 3 Nelson Mandela 
496,013 
The 94-year-old father of the new South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize winner and all-round global inspiration was rushed to hospital on June 8 amid serious worries about his health. His condition is described as critical. 14 - - Conjugate gaze palsy
474,879 The inability to move both eyes in the same direction got a massive surge of views on July 2-3, for no apparent reason 15 7 5 Man of Steel (film)
430,952 The modern reworking of the Superman mythos has been a pretty strong success, having grossed $588 million worldwide as of July 8 16 - - Sabine Lisicki
425,471 
While she didn't win Wimbledon this year, she remained arguably the most popular woman player on the court. 17 12 36 Deaths in 2013 List 421,581 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 18 - - Magna Carta Holy Grail
418,393 
The latest album from rapper Jay-Z was released on July 4 19 19 7 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 367,472 
Newly established staple of the top 25. 20 6 3 World War Z (film)
366,549 Thanks in large part to the presence (and marketing efforts) of producer/star Brad Pitt, this "not really adaptation" of Max Brooks's bestselling novel has become the surprise hit of the summer, grossing nearly $370 million worldwide so far. 21 - - Mohamed Morsi
354,895 
The democratically elected leader of Egypt was ousted in a military coup on July 3, following popular unrest. His departure has triggered violent clashes in the country in the days since. 22 - - Pierce Brosnan
352,175 
Sympathy surged for the popular Irish actor and former James Bond when his daughter Charlotte died on June 28 of ovarian cancer aged only 42 23 - - My Sweet Lord
334,089 
George Harrison song from 1971 that, for some reason, got a surge of views on July 3 24 9 2 Raanjhanaa 
333,692 
The Bollywood debut of award-winning Tamil actor Dhanush was released on June 21 and has already made back its ₹35 crore ($6 million) budget, no doubt aided by a score from internationally renowned composer A. R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire) 25 - - Marion Bartoli
331,624 
Seeded only 15th, she went on to win Wimbledon. That, however, is apparently not enough to win in Wikipedia views.
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- This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
- 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".
- Note: Despite the desire for inclusion expressed above, this week's raw list contained a large number of redlinks and redirects (most, oddly, in Polish) that were probably due to a mis-programmed automated bot and have been excluded. On the plus side, this week also marked the first time that Cat anatomy fell out of the Top 25 since we began this project.
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 331,624. Last week: 299,496
- Almosts: YouTube (330,038 views); Game of Thrones (328,621 views); Google (319,612 views)
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.