Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 8 to 14 2014)
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Summary: To the surprise of absolutely no one, the 2014 FIFA World Cup was the main draw this week, taking more than a third of the slots. People appeared desperate to bone up on their trivia; checking not only this year's World Cup, but the last one, and one before that. The Brazilians, the people lucky (or foolish) enough to be hosting the event, as well as its likely winners, came in for particular scrutiny. Another theme was celebrity tragedy, with the car crash of comedian Tracy Morgan and the sudden and unexpected death of actor Rik Mayall drawing interest. Of course, TV and movies continued to hold sway as the northern summer season moved on.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of June 8-14, 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 12 4 2014 FIFA World Cup 
1,846,098 
And it's off! As is custom, hosts Brazil played the opening match against Croatia. Given everything riding on their shoulders (You don't spend $11 billion on a sports event, sparking the rage of a sizeable portion of your population, and finish in the group stage) the team could have been better; they won (they are Brazil, after all) but opened with an own goal and fooled the ref with a rather obvious dive. Still, they did better than Cup-holders Spain, who were beaten 5-1 by the Netherlands, leading to some rather unforgiving headlines in the national papers. 2 - - Rik Mayall
1,126,482 
Topics of purely British interest seldom make the top 25; as English-speaking nations go, it lacks the numerical heft of the US, or even India. Even if you factor in the countries that share its pop culture, like Australia, you're unlikely to see numbers reach 100 million. So it's a mark of how beloved a comedic icon Rik Mayall was that his sudden and unexpected death on 9 June pushed him to the second spot. Curiosity about the nature of his death likely also played a role; Mayall was only 56, and, while his death is not suspicious, the initial post-mortem was inconclusive. Best known for his roles in 80s comedy series such as The Young Ones, Blackadder and The New Statesman, his only notable Hollywood credit was the 1991 comedy Drop Dead Fred. 3 20 1 FIFA World Cup 
1,021,919 
The broader article on the history of the competition may have been accessed by people looking for the long view, but in truth it was probably more to do with people looking with the more specific article above. 4 11 19 Amazon.com 
885,652 
This article suddenly reappeared in the top 25 a few months ago after a long absence; it's always difficult to determine the reasons for the popularity of website articles (how many are simply misaimed clicks on the Google search list?) but there are at least two possibilities: first, it released its digital media player, Amazon Fire TV on April 2, and second, it is currently embroiled in a dispute with publisher Hachette that could decide whether book publishers even need to exist in the post-digital world. 5 16 6 Orange Is the New Black
763,163 
The second season of the women-in-prison TV series premièred in its entirety on Netflix on 6 June. 6 - - 2010 FIFA World Cup
626,913 
The current World Cup has buoyed interest in the last one, with people doubtless looking for parallels, clues for upcoming matches, or omens. Oddly, Rik Mayall's death may have influenced views; he penned England's anthem for that competition, which has now reached #7 in the UK charts. 7 3 33 Game of Thrones
593,650 
The world Cup dented this show, but it's not leaving till the finale, and maybe not even then. 8 5 11 Game of Thrones (season 4)
571,345 This is the page with the plot synopses for each episode. 9 13 2 2014 FIFA World Cup squads 
534,001 
This is most likely the result of residents of competing countries checking out their opponents. 10 8 2 The Fault in Our Stars
504,006 
YouTube sensei John Green's romantic tearjerker was already a hit with the cyber-set, but boomed up the bestseller list thanks to the opening of its film adaptation. 11 - - Neymar
482,212 
The 22-year-old wunderkind has scored 33 goals in 50 matches for the Brazilian national team, including 2 of the 3 that moved them past Croatia. 12 7 10 List of Game of Thrones episodes
465,672 The episode list is probably used to look up air dates. 13 - - Brazil national football team
421,697 
They may have won this particular trophy 5 times already, but this team arguably has the most to lose. With $11 billion already spent on hosting this event, a poor showing will be a hammer blow to a nation already set to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. 14 14 64 Deaths in 2014
388,241 
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. 15 17 2 Edge of Tomorrow (film)
376,843 
With its greyscale gunmetal aesthetics, Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster attempt not only looks like a third person shooter video game, it borrows its mechanics, with Cruise's character effectively given infinity lives and returning to a save point every time he dies. Judging by the box office, audiences decided if they were going to watch someone else play a video game, they'd do it for free on YouTube. 16 - 2 Rafael Nadal
376,843 
The world number 1 tennis player won his ninth French Open title this week. 17 - - List of Orange Is the New Black episodes
465,672 This show must be getting popular; usually only Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother or Breaking Bad see their episode lists in the top 25. 18 10 4 2014 in film
346,990 
A new entry for the list, probably in preparation for the Hollywood summer movie season. 19 - - Brazil
342,528 
The world's fifth largest country; home to coffee, cachaça, samba, favelas, fio dental, rodents of unusual size, these adorable things and of course, futebol. As the five-time winner, current host and opening side in the FIFA World Cup, it has found itself at the epicentre of a media maelstrom. Of course, it did ask for it. 20 - - List of FIFA World Cup finals
331,178 
Are people perhaps searching for patterns in past finals to see if their countries have a chance? 21 22 45 List of Bollywood films of 2014
312,703 
An established staple of the top 25 returns. 22 - - 2006 FIFA World Cup
309,210 
The last World Cup but one, hosted by Germany, has the unusual distinction of having had four times as many viewers as there were people then on planet Earth. 23 18 74 Facebook
294,148 
A perennially popular article. 24 - - The Fault in Our Stars (film)
289,236 The adaptation of John Green's novel (see above) has proven quite the sleeper, having earned $81 million in just ten days. 25 - - Tracy Morgan 
285,181 
The popular star of the sitcom 30 Rock was involved in a six-car pileup on 7 June, sparking rumours (thankfully false) that he was dead. Still, enough people were spooked to rush over to Wikipedia to ensure that his name still had just one year next to it.
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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). 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.
- Ddd: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Lycos: The geriatric web portal is back.
- Climatic Research Unit email controversy: And it's back. It says something about this manufactroversy that someone feels the need to shove it repeatedly down our throats, as if that were the best way to get people to believe it.
- Specific exclusions this week:
- Sammie: the rapper got a one-day spike on June 8 for no apparent reason.