The Top 25 Report
Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (21 to 27 July, 2013)
edit← Last week's report – Next week's Report →
Summary: Somewhat predictably, the birth of a new heir to the House of Windsor on 22 July led the English-speaking world to tug en masse its collective forelock and engage in an orgy of unrepentant, exhibitionist Monarchism. The Royals' dominance this week is particularly striking when one considers that the two largest English-speaking populations on Earth are the US and India; neither a country one would expect to eulogise the British royal yoke. In honour of this occasion, the Top 25 report will be assiduously employing British spelling and dating conventions. Cheers.
For the week of 20 to 27 July, 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 - - Rosalind Franklin 
2,314,478 
The co-discoverer of DNA alongside Watson and Crick got a Google Doodle to celebrate her 93rd birthday on 25 July. It's nice to know that, even amid this gushing celebration of pre-natal entitlement, a woman can still be recognised for changing history through her own effort (even if she didn't get a Nobel Prize for it). 2 - - Prince William, Duke of Cambridge
790,630 
The baby-daddy of the day got the highest view count of his extended family, though nearly everyone got a look-in. 3 - - Elizabeth II 
694,842 
Still going strong after 61 years on the throne, no one can deny that the great-grandmother of the newly-minted bundle of joy (her third great-grandkid so far) has done an excellent job of symbolising her country for all that time. 4 - - Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
655,249 
That's Kate Middleton to the rest of us. You'd think she'd be higher, given that she did most of the work to bring about this situation. 5 - - Charles, Prince of Wales
527,043 
The heir to the British throne (a.k.a the most thankless job ever) got some sympathy in accordance with his newly established granddad status. 6 - - Diana, Princess of Wales
523,396 
The baby's late and still much-lamented granny (the word just doesn't fit, does it?) may also have drawn attention due to a biopic coming out this year. 7 7 29 Facebook
515,653 
A perennially popular article. 8 14 2 The Conjuring (film) 
506,204 James Wan's latest ghost story (reportedly based on true events, take that as you will) stormed the US, taking $70 million in its first week. 9 - - The Wolverine (film) 
477,296 The second attempt to give X-Men fan-favourite Wolverine his own franchise appears to be doing far better than the first, taking $21 million in its first day. 10 - - Dennis Farina
453,466 
Likable actor of Manhunter, Get Shorty and Midnight Run fame got a decent sendoff from Wikipedians after his death on 22 July. 11 2 3 Shooting of Trayvon Martin
405,473 
The debate over George Zimmerman's shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, and its relevance to race relations in America and the validity of "stand your ground" laws, reached its climax on 13 July when a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. 12 4 3 Pacific Rim (film)
397,822 Guillermo del Toro's $190-million anime-inspired monsters vs. robots slugfest is not tracking well with the American mainstream, and now seems unlikely to crack $100 million domestically, but remains in its third week a strong talking point among Wikipedian cineastes. 13 - - Ultron
394,314 Marvel Comics cybernetic supervillain who sent movie fans scrambling for information when it was revealed he would be the villain in the upcoming Avengers sequel. 14 6 3 Milkha Singh
379,897 
"The Flying Sikh", the record-breaking track and fielder who represented India in three Olympic Games, became a topic of interest after his biopic, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, was released on July 12. Singh sold the rights for ₹1 but insisted a share of the profits be given to a charitable trust. 15 11 39 Deaths in 2013 List 374,314 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article, even in a week as birth-obsessed as this one. 16 - - Prince George of Cambridge
368,049 
The bouncing baby bullseye of the brouhaha came in surprisingly low on the list, probably due to the constant name changes to his article. If the views for his article's various titles over the last 7 days are totted up, they would put little George in third place. 17 11 2 Orange Is the New Black
353,761 The women-in-prison TV series premiered in its entirety on Netflix on 11 July. 18 - - Prince Harry of Wales
348,302 
The twinkle-eyed tot's helicoptering hellion uncle was also the recipient of a large number of views; one wonders what proportion were female. 19 13 10 List of Bollywood films of 2013 List 330,218 
An established staple of the top 25. 20 - - Beanie Babies
312,693 This oddball mid-90s toy craze is probably back in the public eye due to a documentary circulating on the Internet, "Bankrupt By Beanies" about a family who spent over $100,000 on the toys, thinking their momentary inflated prices marked a sound investment, only to be left stranded when the Beanie Bubble burst. 21 15 27 Google 
324,012 
A perennially popular article. 22 9 2 Bhaag Milkha Bhaag 
299,575 Biopic of Indian athlete Milkha Singh (see #14 above) 23 - - Line of succession to the British throne List 292,470 
Unsurprisingly, this page has seen some attention, particularly after the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 outlawed the "male preference" in male-preference cognatic primogeniture. However, that law has yet to come into effect. 24 - - Kathryn Johnston shooting
284,341 A Reddit thread about this unfortunate elderly woman, who was shot by plainclothes police officers who later attempted to frame her by planting drugs, led to a massive spike in views. 25 21 38 World War II
284,103 
Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.)
.JPG)
- This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
- Cat anatomy: A spammer with a sense of humour? Lazy med students looking for quick info on cat dissections? Or a REALLY confused adware bot for Friskies? The debate still rages as to why this article continues to rank so highly.
- 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.
- MONO (Shigeo Tamaru Album) and Chikako Watanabe: Articles related to the Japanese band NaNa have been popping into the Top 25 for weeks with no determined rationale. There may be one. We haven't found it.
- Specific removals this week (those for whom no explanation for their popularity could be found):
- Psychosis: No particular reason can be determined for this page's sudden surge in popularity.
- Last Resort (TV series): Why this canceled TV series would suddenly rise in popularity has not been determined.
- Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 284,103. Last week: 248,315
- Almosts: George VI (282,256 views); Phil Mickelson (270,961 views); Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (263,150 views)
- The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.