Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 22 to 28, 2013)
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Summary: When Jimbo envisioned Wikipedia bringing knowledge to the world, that vision probably didn't include people using it as a TV listings guide. But things are as they are, and TV remains remains arguably Wikipedia's single most enduringly popular topic. This week, with its confluences of series endings or near-endings, series premieres and season premieres, brought this aspect of our audience to the fore.
For the week of September 22 - 27, 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 3 8 Breaking Bad 
1,094,844 
The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11. 2 4 38 Facebook
663,781 
A perennially popular article 3 6 7 List of Breaking Bad episodes List 605,400 People will turn to this page to keep up with the show. 4 - - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 
580,701 
Joss Whedon's extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television has been met with mixed reviews but to date, anyway) fairly stellar ratings. 5 2 3 Grand Theft Auto V
554,242 
The sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time (seriously) and arguably the only situation in which someone will cheer you for hijacking and then crashing a jumbo jet full of passengers, just made $1 billion in 3 days. That's a lot of gypped prostitutes. 6 7 6 Breaking Bad (season 5) List 526,088 As above, people want to keep up with this show. 7 13 36 Google 
400,116 
A perennially popular article. 8 - - Dexter (TV series)
371,813 
The final season of the serial killer/vigilante TV series has received, frankly, abysmal reviews; that said, the series finale still generated huge interest. 9 - - Max Martin
352,775 
The writer of a huge number of bubblegum pop hits (including "Baby One More Time", "I Want It That Way" and "I Kissed A Girl") got a Reddit thread this week. 10 11 48 Deaths in 2013 List 344,294 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 11 - - The Big Bang Theory
323,275 
The hugely popular sitcom about tech geeks had a double-header season premiere on September 26. 12 15 19 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 320,177 
An established staple of the top 25. 13 - - Lorde
305,200 
The not-quite 17-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand released her modestly titled debut album, Pure Heroine, on 27 September. 14 18 3 Wikipedia
291,089 
Wikipedia's presence in its own top 25 appears to due to genuine interest. Perhaps we should expect it to take up permanent residence in future. 15 23 41 World War II
284,370 
Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) 16 21 8 IPv6
283,937 
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. 17 25 7 Twerking 
282,976 
The new term for waggling your bottom onstage continues to be a point of interest. 18 20 4 Miley Cyrus
288,100 
Well, she twerked herself into her coming of age, then graduated into adulthood by riding nude on a wrecking ball while licking a sledgehammer. Any attempt to top this will have to involve shaving her head or shoplifting. 19 - - James Hunt
280,971 
The first of two legendary racers whose duel was retold in Ron Howard's film Rush 20 - - Dexter (season 8) List 277,931 The final season Dexter got a berth to itself, which is odd since it just ended. 21 9 2 Nothing Was the Same
277,634 
The latest album from Canadian rapper Drake was released on September 24. 22 - 6 How I Met Your Mother
267,686 
This hugely popular sitcom has always been a popular search on this site. Its latest season premiered on September 23. 23 - 8 Attack on Titan
267,323 This anime TV series has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere. 24 - - Niki Lauda
247,792 
The other half of Rush's dueling racing duo. 25 - - BMW
241,360 
Nothing is more likely to stimulate interest in a brand like a complete product recall, and BMW had one this week.
- Almosts:
- UFC 165 (236,587 views); Whipping Tom (236,431 views); How I Met Your Mother (season 9) (234,814 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:
- Icinga: Obscure technical or computer-related articles occasionally appear in the top 25, for reasons unknown.
- Notes:
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 241,360. Last week: 274,779
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.