Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 6 to 12, 2013)
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Summary: When Alfred Nobel, the creator of dynamite, had the unusual chance to read his own obituary (it was a mix-up involving his brother's death), he was not pleased with how history had decided to remember him (the phrase "merchant of death" was employed). So he decided to spend his remaining years and entire fortune setting up a contest to make the world a better place. The result was the Nobel Prizes and, surprisingly, Nobel seems to have got his wish. While his contest may not have the presence of, say, the Oscars, three topics in the top 25 are related to this year's awards, held on October 10.
For the week of October 6 - 12, 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 9 2 Gravity (film) 
638,019 
Alfonso Cuaron's outer space opus is shaping into the critical darling blockbuster of the year, earning over $190 million worldwide in its first ten days. 2 7 40 Facebook 
536,286 
A perennially popular article 3 1 10 Breaking Bad
525,210 
People still want to know about this show, even though it ended last week. 4 8 3 Lorde
449,871 
The not-quite 17-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand released her modestly titled debut album, Pure Heroine, on 27 September. 5 12 21 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 370,116 
An established staple of the top 25. 6 14 43 World War II 
363,648 
Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) 7 - - Malala Yousafzai
362,657 
The 16-year-old (and youngest ever) Nobel Peace Prize nominee made the talk show rounds to promote her autobiography, I Am Malala, released on the 9th of October, the first anniversary of her shooting by a Taliban fighter for speaking out for women's education in her native Pakistan. Despite being the "star" of the 2013 Nobel Prizes, she didn't win, but then, neither did Gandhi. 8 19 6 Miley Cyrus
342,994 
Another young woman of note, though for somewhat different reasons. 9 19 50 Deaths in 2013 List 341,523 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 10 10 3 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
330,950 
Joss Whedon's extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television has been met with mixed reviews but (to date, anyway) fairly stellar ratings. 11 - - Alice Munro 
327,528 
The Canadian writer was the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. 12 11 10 Attack on Titan
310,333 This anime TV series has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere. 13 17 40 Google
302,866 
A perennially popular article. 14 - - Janet Yellen
292,510 
Obama's nomination to be head of the Federal Reserve would, if confirmed, be the first woman to hold the position. 15 - 15 The Walking Dead (TV series)
287,739 
The fourth season of the popular TV series premiered on October 13. 16 - - Adnan Januzaj
286,278 
The Manchester United midfielder, a Kosovar Albanian born in Brussels, has been mooted as a potential Englishman since scoring 2 goals against Sunderland on the 5th of October. 17 - 3 United States
278,430 
A rarity in the top 25, but the 3rd most popular Wikipedia article between 2010–2012, and 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 22 5 Wikipedia
277,173 
Over the last few weeks, Wikipedia has secured a place at the top of its own chart, and, by all appearances, a legitimate one. 19 - 7 IPv6
272,076 
This issue has reappeared in the top 25, after hovering below it for some time. 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 - - Alec Guinness
261,758 
"The only member of British acting royalty whose voice can be heard in video arcades", to quote Leonard Maltin, got a Reddit thread this week concerning his somewhat ambivalent attitude towards Star Wars. 21 - 8 Twerking
256,303 
The new term for waggling your bottom onstage continues to be a point of interest. 22 - - Halloween
246,473 
October is the month for the celebration of the scary. 23 - 3 Eminem
242,557 
The rapper's latest single, "Survival", was released on the 8th of October. 24 - - Higgs Boson
236,851 
The 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to the particle physicists who first hypothesised this recently discovered elementary particle. 25 - - American Horror Story
230,488 
The horror TV series began its third season on October 9
- Almosts:
- Adrian Peterson (227,720 views); YouTube (227,339 views); Arrow (TV series) (226,022 views)
- Exclusions:
- 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 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.
- 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".
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Lycos: the geriatric web portal seems to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason.
- Specific exclusions this week (if you know a reason for their presence, please post it on the talk page):
- Conan the Barbarian (1982 film): For some reason, got 800,000 views on October 12.
- Go (game): The ancient Chinese strategy game has been getting a lot of views over the last few weeks, though I have yet to determine why (to be honest, it may simply be due to the difficulty of Googling the word "go").
- Notes:
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 230,488. Last week: 282,338
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.