Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 30 to April 5, 2014)

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

Summary: Television has always been a topic of choice on this site, but this week, it exploded. Fully 10 slots were devoted to television shows, as the final episode of How I Met Your Mother, one of the most popular Wikipedia searches of the last few years, coincided with the season finale of The Walking Dead, the upcoming fourth season of Game of Thrones, and the return of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. If movies released on video, pay-per-view events, new TV tech and dead TV stars are included, then TV has the majority of slots on this list. This leads me to ponder: if television is the principal concern of our readership, perhaps a more TV-friendly Wikipedia spinoff is in order? We could call it WikiTiVi.

For the week of March 30 to April 5, 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	24	8	How I Met Your Mother	931,180	This hugely popular sitcom has always been a popular search on this site, and it creeps back into the top 25 in the week of its final episode on March 31.
2	-	2	April Fools' Day	920,853	The first day of April, perennial party for practical jokers and pranksters, continues to amuse the cynical and infuriate the gullible
3	14	3	How I Met Your Mother (season 9)	654,840	Obviously, people wanted to know when the series finale aired.
4	7	26	The Walking Dead (TV series)	615,592	The show's fourth-season finale fell on 30 March.
5	2	9	Amazon.com	500,321	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, announced this week, is 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.
6	15	23	Game of Thrones	453,199	This TV show's previous season, not to be glib, owned this list. I expect its upcoming season, due to commence on 6 April, to do no less.
7	7	26	"Last Forever"	435,595	How I Met Your Mother, one of the most popular shows among our readership, drew 13.3 million viewers to its finale on March 31; its highest ratings ever. That said, when you hinge a show's entire plot on its final event (just look at the title) you better pull off that event with aplomb, and from the looks of things, the risky, problematic ending the writers chose (and actually filmed six seasons ago) has polarised critics and diehard fans alike.
8	6	54	Deaths in 2014	419,505	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
9	16	7	The Walking Dead (season 4)	297,540	People are undoubtedly using this page to look up the finale's air date.
10	8	16	Frozen (2013 film)	412,808	Disney's Oscar-winning juggernaut got a shot in the arm thanks to its release on DVD on March 18. Despite this, it has already overtaken Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as Disney's highest-grossing film in theatres.
11	-	-	Noah (film)	396,611	Darren Aronofsky's high fantasy take on the Book of Genesis has been ambivalently received for its Biblical fealty, but has made a solid $72 million in its first 10 days, so obviously people are curious about it.
12	5	64	Facebook	379,678	A perennially popular article.
13	-	-	List of How I Met Your Mother episodes	376,489	It is odd, perhaps even ironic, that the airdate list for a show so popular with Wikipedians, who often mistake this site for a TV reference guide, would only appear here in the week of its final episode.
14	1	4	Malaysia Airlines Flight 370	369,245	Pings notwithstanding, closure for this tragic event still feels no closer, and so people have turned away, perhaps in self-defense, to seek solace in more superficial things.
15	13	8	Jordan Belfort	341,852	Onetime stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for running a penny stock boiler room and went on to write the books that the film The Wolf of Wall Street is based on got a new lease on the list thanks to the films recent release on video. Yes, he did actually call himself "The Wolf of Wall Street".
16	-	3	List of The Walking Dead episodes	316,243	People are undoubtedly using this page to look up air dates.
17	21	27	United States	289,020	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.
18	19	36	List of Bollywood films of 2014	286,166	An established staple of the top 25 returns.
19	-	5	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.	277,624	Joss Whedon's extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television returned on 1 April after a three-week hiatus.
20	-	-	Game of Thrones (season 4)	271,776	The new season of this rather insanely popular show begins on 6 April.
21	20	12	Wikipedia	268,077	Wikipedia returns to its own Top 25.
22	9	2	Divergent (film)	258,547	Another attempt to turn a girls' action novel into a film franchise, ala Hunger Games, this one a Brave New World rework in which individuals are sorted into 5 classes- the honest, the selfless, the brave, the peaceful and the intelligent- and those who don't fit into those categories are targeted and killed. Question: How could anyone not fit one of those categories? Anyone who is not honest, selfless, brave, peaceful, or intelligent is probably in prison. Still, it made $114 million in 17 days, so it's obviously hit a nerve.
23	-	-	WrestleMania XXX	252,954	WWE's annual battle re-enactment was broadcast on pay-per-view on April 6.
24	-	8	The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 film)	251,392	Martin Scorsese's acclaimed account of one person's contribution to our general economic misery premiered on home video on 25 March.
25	-	-	Kate O'Mara	242,802	The Dynasty star and former former Time Lord died on 30 March

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 242,802. Last week: 268,523.

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

Almosts: Frankie Knuckles (233,170 views); Ebola virus disease (230,339 views); List of Game of Thrones episodes (228,047 views)

Exclusions[edit]

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 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: My only guess is a bot searching for the programming language.
- Climatic Research Unit email controversy: I'll believe that Climategate was #1 during a typhoon, but that it got more hits than Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving? No.
- IPv6: I have to face facts; I've been allowing 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
- Malware: It is perfectly in character for malware to look up malware.

Specific exclusions this week:

- Stereoscope: out-of-nowhere, artificial-looking rise for this article.
- The Legend of Korra: one-day-spike for this popular cartoon suggests non-human origin.
- Automobile: Again, wild, random surges for this article suggest non-human views
- JOP: Links to disambigs are always suspect, and since one on the list is related to Java, it seems pretty obvious where it comes from.
- High-temperature superconductivity: Suspiciously even spike for this article.