Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 22 to 28, 2013)
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Summary: The festive season isn't much in evidence this week, when Christmas couldn't even top the list on its own day. Heck, it was beaten by Boxing Day, and even given a fair run by Festivus. People were more interested in Bollywood movies than they were the Christmas holiday, which shows a certain lassitude within the English language's traditional strongholds. In fact, TV and movies were the dominant theme this week, with the strongest Christmas presence provided by the Doctor Who Christmas special.
For the week of December 22 to 28, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages* were:
Rank Last Wks Article Class Views Image Notes 1 - - Boxing Day 
797,270 
Given that the day after Christmas is only its own holiday in Commonwealth countries, it is surprising that it managed to top the list in Christmas week, as traffic to the English Wikipedia is usually dominated by topics of American interest. Perhaps it was envy? 2 8 2 Dhoom 3
628,765 
No, not Doom 3, the surprisingly scary demonic blow-em-up video game, but the third installment of the Dhoom series, a hugely successful Bollywood buddy cop movie franchise involving hi-tech crime. Like many recent Bollywood films, it has broken domestic box-office records; it made back half of its $23 million budget at the box office in its first two days and even broke records for a Bollywood film in North America, cracking the US top 10. 3 11 4 Christmas 
531,684 
The most wonderful time of the year has struggled to make an impression on this list, and has now failed to top it in its own week. Is this an indication that people just aren't in the festive spirit this year? The current economic climate being what it is, perhaps people just don't feel particularly giving. 4 2 51 Facebook
464,908 
A perennially popular article 5 - - Jordan Belfort
437,855 
Onetime stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for running a penny stock boiler room, he went on to write the books that the film The Wolf of Wall Street is based on. Yes, he did actually call himself "The Wolf of Wall Street". 6 7 60 Deaths in 2013 List 427,455 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 7 6 3 Duck Dynasty
461,652 
Despite this reality show's fourth-season finale having aired on December 11, it has flushed itself back into the open thanks to some fairly ill-informed comments about homosexuality by its pater familias, Phil Robertson. 8 22 32 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 269,792 
An established staple of the top 25. 9 18 4 Frozen (2013 film) 
321,251 
Disney's de facto sequel to Tangled has become something of a sensation. On its fifth weekend, its domestic box office take increased by 47 percent and it has now grossed nearly $500 million worldwide. 10 - - The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 film)
308,837 
Martin Scorsese's acclaimed account of one person's contribution to our general economic misery opened to a respectable $34 million on Christmas Day. 11 - 4 Doctor Who
308,384 
The longest-running science fiction television series in history had its now-traditional Christmas special this week, which featured the change of the guard from previous Doctor Matt Smith to new incarnation Peter Capaldi. 12 19 2 Santa Claus
307,756 
The patron saint of childhood greed makes his second and almost certainly final appearance until next Christmas. 13 - - Festivus
297,170 
The "festival for the rest of us", made popular by an episode of Seinfeld, has outgrown its roots and become a lighthearted atheist alternative to Christmas. This year, the holiday became a topic of contention as residents of both Florida and Wisconsin successfully applied to have a festivus pole (traditionally aluminum and unadorned, though the one in Florida was made with empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans) set next to nativity scenes, on the grounds that, if you're going to allow a Christian structure on public land, Festivus should have its day as well. Unsurprisingly, the decision to allow them sparked a storm of controversy, as these sorts of things are wont to do in America. After initially deciding not to put up a nativity scene at all, rather than have to include a Festivus pole, the Florida state government allowed in a nativity scene right before Christmas, leading the original erector of the pole, atheist Chaz Stevens, to threaten to sue. 14 - - Alan Turing 
295,275 
Widely considered the father of modern computing and, with his eponymous Turing Test, artificial intelligence research, Alan Turing's work cracking the Enigma code is considered crucial to the Allied victory in World War II. After the war, the British government rewarded his services by hounding him for his homosexuality and giving him the choice between imprisonment and chemical castration. He chose the latter and eventually committed suicide by biting into a poisoned apple. This week, five months after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales, the British government finally fully pardoned Turing for his "criminal behaviour". Some might argue this was a bit late in coming, but at least they did it. 15 16 2 Arvind Kejriwal
294,274 
India faces a general election next year, and the choices are not pleasant. The economy is slowing while unemployment is rising. The ruling Congress Party is widely regarded as ineffectual and nepotistic. The populist opposition leader, Narendra Modi, has an excellent economic record as governor of the state of Gujarat but is also a staunch Hindu nationalist who stood back when a pogrom against Muslims in his state claimed over 1000 lives in 2002. Cue Arvind Kejriwal, a former member of the Indian Revenue Service whose newly-formed Aam Aadmi Party won 28 seats in this month's Delhi Legislative Assembly election. The party is running on a populist, anti-corruption platform, but it remains to be seen whether it will have any traction outside of Delhi. 16 - 2 List of Doctor Who serials List 288,817 As the Christmas special ends, people are looking forward to the new season next autumn. 17 - - American Hustle (2013 film)
286,132 
David O. Russell's star-studded 70s art-forgery caper is getting strong reviews and decent box office, having grossed $60 million domestic in its first 18 days. 18 - - The Time of the Doctor
284,750 
Doctor Who's annual Christmas special got particular notice this week for being Matt Smith's last turn in the role. 19 - 22 IPv6
276,023 
This issue continuously reappears in the top 25. 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. 20 - - Neerja Bhanot
272,539 
The heroic flight attendant who saved multiple lives at the cost of her own when terrorists boarded Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986 became news again this week when her family complained about perceived US double standards in paying out the entirety of Libya's $1.5 billion compensation for the attack to American victims, despite agreeing to take up the case of an Indian national on a more recent, unrelated issue. Her profile may also have been raised by the 25th anniversary of the later attack on Pan Am Flight 103. 21 17 6 Jennifer Lawrence
269,542 
Wikipedia's favourite actress needs little excuse to reenter the top 25, though she has many this week, with two films in the weekend box office top ten (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and American Hustle). 22 13 14 United States
264,992 
The 3rd most popular Wikipedia article between 2010 and 2012, and even when not on the list, 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. 23 - 14 Breaking Bad
263,662 
The most Wikipedia'd show of the year ended for good two months ago; even so, with its appearance on countless "best of the year" lists, and an unexpected endorsement from US President Barack Obama, it's still drumming interest from the public. On December 27, AMC began a four-day marathon, showing all 62 episodes. 24 - - Mikhail Kalashnikov
251,894 
The inventor of the AK-47, by some accounts the most devastating weapon ever devised, died this week at the age of 94. Though he never received any financial reward for his creation, he remained proud of it, proclaiming it as a weapon of defence, rather than attack. His legacy remains problematic; it is estimated that the AK and its variants now total over 100 million, or one fifth the entire world's firearms total. However, such is its enduring mystique that the nation of Mozambique placed it on their flag. 25 12 7 Bitcoin
242,661 
The oddball digital currency that is mostly beloved of radical libertarians is back in the news this week. Bankers have (prematurely?) suggested it may prove a legitimate competitor to real money, even though many argue they are best described as a store of value rather than a functional currency. An attempt to declare "Bitcoin Black Friday" to try and get people to actually spend the frigging things instead of hoarding them (Except that, from one point of view, hoarding them is exactly the right thing to do if their value continues to skyrocket as it has done) led to the purchase of a great deal of gold, swapping one store of value another.
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 242,661. Last week: 247,011.
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.
- Almosts: A Christmas Story (240,296 views); AK-47 (237,220 views); Johannes Kepler (227,857 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.
- Lycos: the geriatric web portal seems to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason.
- Java: My only guess is a bot searching for the programming language.
- Several articles related to global warming (including global warming) have been removed from this list; their continued high view counts are raising suspicions of artificial inflation. I'll believe that Climategate was #1 during a typhoon, but that it got more hits than Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving? No.
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Specific exclusions for this week:
- Sa'idi Arabic: A two-day spike for this article suggests a Reddit thread, though none suggested itself this week
- The Attack (Animorphs): Again, two-day spike suggests interest on a popular forum, though I could not locate it.
- One-day spikes:
- One-day spikes, with no tail-off, are unlikely to be the result of human views.
- Technical articles:
- Articles on obscure technical topics occasionally gain massive interest for short periods, for no discernible reason:
- HTTP: actually a redirect, which means it's unlikely due to human activity
- Next-generation access: Why this spiked for two days, and then disappeared, is still uncertain.