Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/October 18 to 24, 2015

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The Top 25 Report


Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 18 to 24, 2015)[edit]

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

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Everybody Knows Canada!

Canada, The Most Popular Nation on Earth: With the triumph of Justin Trudeau (#1) in the Canadian federal election (#13), he also placed top in our chart this week, though some of this Internet popularity appears to be due to his "hotness". This also placed his father and former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau at #4. And with "Back to the Future Day" falling on October 21, Canadian-American actor Michael J. Fox landed at #3. Thus, three of the top five spots this week, and seven of the Top 25 (beating the five placed by India in July), are Canada-related. As the 37th most populated country in the world, this seems a feat unlikely to soon be repeated.

Elsewhere on the chart, the coming of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which still doesn't happen until December, took up two slots in the Top 10. A new age-titled album from singer Adele placed #7, and the Top 10 was rounded out by a Reddit thread about a rare disease, and the stalwart Deaths in 2015.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of October 18 to 24, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Justin Trudeau C-class 2,709,956
Trudeau is expected to soon take over as Prime Minister of Canada following the success of his Liberal Party in the recent Canadian federal election. Trudeau's father Pierre Trudeau (#4) served in that role from 1968-1984 (with a brief break in 1979-80). With over 2.7 million views for the week, this was quite a popular event. To some unknown extent, the article's views were inflated by widespread press coverage about the subject's attractiveness, both pro and con.
2 Star Wars: The Force Awakens C-class 1,271,270
If you've caught the press coverage about this upcoming movie here and there, you may be asking yourself, is this thing ever coming out? A poster and new trailer was released last week, which apparently caused a frenzy on the part of the internet not ogling the force of Justin Trudeau. And for those us not that closely involved, the answer is that it rolls out in parts of Europe on December 16, the U.K. on December 17, and North America on December 18.
3 Michael J. Fox Good Article 933,448
October 21, 2015 was "Back to the Future Day" – the day in the future that Marty McFly (played by Fox) traveled to in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II. And though we don't have true hoverboards or a Jaws 19 movie, and the Chicago Cubs just missed their chance to make it to the World Series, the Internet nostalgia engine was running out of control. And with fathers and son Trudeau, the appearance of the Canadian born Fox means that Canada, the 37th most populated country in the world, has placed three of the top five articles this week, a feat unlikely to ever be repeated.
4 Pierre Trudeau B-class 860,884
Ranked by scholars as one of the greatest Canadian prime ministers, and also the slightly less attractive forebear of this week's #1.
5 Back to the Future Good Article 767,683
See #3, #11, and #15.
6 Black hole Good Article 612,175
Up from #13 last week, but a debatable entry. The first entry without 1970/80s roots, as the 1979 Disney film The Black Hole simply does not generate that much warm nostalgia. Though a Reddit thread could lift an article like this into the Top 10 on any given week, we do not see any such thread. Stats.grok.se shows a jump in views starting on October 13 from a few thousand per day to over 40,000 per day. It has 25% mobile views (not the either 0% or 99% typical of bot-view popularity), but we may drop this from the list if these steady views continue and a human-based explanation cannot be found.
7 Adele C-class 581,472
The popular singer's new album 25 will be released on November 20. The first single, "Hello", debuted on October 23. As of this writing, the video for "Hello" already has 73 million views.
8 Star Wars Good Article 567,518
See #2.
9 Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva Start-class 545,423 October 24 saw the most interest in this article, generated by a Reddit thread that stated "[today I learned] that there is a disease that makes the body repair injuries using bone, over the course of many years, this leads to the victim becoming more and more like a statue." Non-sensational headlines like this actually can get attention on Reddit; they don't need to use clickbait thread titles like "Feeling lethargic today? Find out if rare disease may be turning you into stone!"
10 Deaths in 2015 List 535,526
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550 thousand on average, apparently heedless of who actually died. Deaths this week included NASA specialist Robert W. Farquhar whose projects included the first probe to intercept a comet in 1985 (October 18); Miss Austria 2013 Ena Kadić, who died from injuries sustained from falling off a mountain (October 19); Polish-Austrian economist Kazimierz Łaski, a leading proponent of Post-Keynesian economics (October 20, pictured); Pakistani cricket manager Yawar Saeed (October 21); Former Mexican senator Tomás Torres Mercado, who died in a plane crash (October 22); Croatian chess grandmaster Krunoslav Hulak (October 23); and 20-year-old British charity fundraiser Kirsty Howard (October 24).
11 Back to the Future II C-class 532,838
See #3 and #5. Back to the Future is a Good Class article, and this is only a C, probably because the first movie of the trilogy is far better than the sequels.
12 American Horror Story: Hotel C-Class 525,282
The fifth season of American Horror Story premiered on October 7. Down from #4 and 723,745 views last week.
13 Canadian federal election, 2015 C-class 519,722
See #1.
14 Margaret Trudeau Start-class 511,879
The mother of #1 and widow of #4.
15 Christopher Lloyd C-class 933,448
Another primary star of the Back to the Future movies, Lloyd played the mad scientist role of "Doc" Emmett Brown.
16 2012 Benghazi attack C-class 485,770
United States presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified in a marathon session before the Congressional Benghazi committee on October 22.
17 Sophie Grégoire Start-class 511,879
Wife of #1.
18 Pablo Escobar B-Class 453,816 572,268
Down about 120,000 views from last week, but the fascination with the Netflix series Narcos continues to keep the Capone of cocaine on the Top 25.
19 Crimson Peak Start-class 580,155
Down from #6 and 580,155 views last week. Director Guillermo del Toro's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Gothic romance has been declared merely "average" by critics, received a withering "B-" from the usually generous Cinemascore, and opened to a dead-on-arrival $12 million. Interesting that it nonetheless managed to be the most viewed film of the week on Wikipedia last week, and beaten only by 1980s Back to the Future entries this week.
20 Lamar Odom B-Class 416,171
The former basketball player and spouse of Khloé Kardashian, who was hospitalized earlier this month after being found unconscious at a brothel. Down from #1 and over 2 million views last week.
21 Stephen Harper Good Article 410,952
Lost to #1 in #13. The sixth entry related to the Canadian elections.
22 Crypt of Civilization Start-class 402,114
Reddit learned "that there is an airtight room in a University in Georgia (US) [it is Oglethorpe University, pictured], sealed in 1940, to be opened in the year 8113. The "Crypt of Civilization" contains a wealth of artifacts from literary works to everyday items." A check of the handle schedule at list of time capsules tells us that this is latest-scheduled opening of a time capsule in existence -- as 6,000 years is an incredibly long time to imagine people will remember this, unless someone is reviewing this Top 25 report in the distant future (Hello!). Then again, the news is this week reporting the find of 3500-year-old undisturbed grave in Pylos, dubbed the Griffin Warrior, a redlink that may need attention.
23 Halloween B-class 389,427
Unlike most other holidays, Halloween usually creeps into the Top 25 in advance of its appointed date.
24 Samburu people Start-class 398,093
The Samburu are a semi-nomadic tribe in north-central Kenya. Article views peaked on October 19, likely due to Reddit or similar coverage, which a reader helpfully found for us here at Reddit.
25 Spectre (2015 film) Start-class 382,163
The 24th James Bond film, and fourth starring Daniel Craig, was released on October 26 in the U.K., just after the period covered by this week's report.


Exclusions[edit]

  • This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% or less) or almost all mobile views (~95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.
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