Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (November 6 to 12, 2016)
edit← Last week's report – Next week's report →
- See also our Special Traffic Report: The U.S. Presidential Election analyzing election related traffic from June 2015-November 2016
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President Trump: In the early morning of November 9, Donald Trump (#1) was announced to have been elected to be the 45th President of the United States, in one of the most oddball political victories of all time. And of course, he leads the chart this week with 12.3 million views, compared to only 2.64 million for his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton (#6). Trump's numbers are second-highest seen since we started the Top 25 in 2013 (the record was set in April 2016 when Prince died).
Clearly this is a momentous event in United States politics. In comparison, when Barack Obama was first elected in November 2008 as the first black president, his article received only 4.99 million views on the week of the election, compared to 1.08 million to his opponent John McCain. (Although mobile viewcounts were not captured then, mobile views were not a very large portion of traffic in 2008.) This 5-1 view ratio is similar to the Trump-Hillary ratio we see in this week's report. See also User:Andrew Gray/Election statistics for an in-depth analysis of 2008 statistics done shortly after that election. In 2012 (when mobile viewcounts were a larger portion of traffic than in 2008 but still not captured by stats.grok.se), Obama beat Mitt Romney in election week views by 2.04 million to 1.78 million.
Nine of the top 10 slots this week are election-related, with only Queen Elizabeth II (#8) breaking the run, based on the great success of The Crown television series. The Crown also propelled other British royal figures into the Top 25 with impressive view numbers. But nineteen of the Top 25 articles are election-related, a new record for single-topic related articles in a week.
The most notable death, which would have probably been #1 in any other week, was that of cult songwriter Leonard Cohen (#13). This week's chart is also astounding because every article in the Top 25 exceeded one million views -- we have never even come close to that level of traffic before among the top viewed articles. Usually a few of the top articles in a given week get to that level. And for the first time(*actually not first, see ETA note) since we began this report in January 2013, Deaths in (Year) was knocked out of the Top 25, placing at #34. So we've provided an extended list for #26-35 this week at the bottom of the chart, many of which are also election-related. (ETA 22 Dec 2016: Actually it was not the first time, please see Wikipedia_talk:Top_25_Report#Deaths_in_current_year. It is an uncommon event, but it has happened before.- MW)
Please note that this report refrains from making any strong comments of opinion about Donald Trump; no conclusions should be drawn from that decision. The press in the United States and around the world is reporting heavily on the meaning and effect of Trump's election. Just don't get your news and commentary from fake Facebook news sites.
Also, please see our SPECIAL REPORT on the U.S. Presidential election -- tracking the popularity of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's articles for the whole campaign cycle, from June 2015 to November 2016. As detailed there, attention and enthusiasm for Donald Trump far exceeded that of Clinton across the board. Perhaps this was an overlooked indicator of enthusiasm related to Trump's chances of success.
As prepared by Milowent, for the week of November 6 to 12, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Donald Trump 
12,331,880 
Trump won the election to be President of the United States held on November 8, and his article got the second-most views ever for this chart. 6.1 million of these views were on November 9. As our daily data from the WP:5000 is based on UTC hours, no doubt views increased in the early hours of November 9 as it became clear that Trump could, and then would, win the election. 2 United States presidential election, 2016 
5,414,267 
Views peaked at 2.36 million on November 9. 3 Electoral College (United States)
4,496,355 In the United States, the president is not elected by the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won, but by the "electoral college," which consists of 538 votes spread out over the 50 states and District of Columbia, and where the winner of the popular vote in each state (with the exception of two states) receives all the electoral votes for that state. This is the fifth time that the winner of the popular vote lost the election, the last being in 2000. When the counts are final, it is clear that the gap between Clinton and Trump will be largest ever instance of this issue. Trump thread the needle by getting close wins in the Rust Belt states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan while losing the popular vote by a large margin in populous states like California and New York. 4 Melania Trump
4,198,183 
Mrs. Trump will be the first foreign-born First Lady of the United States since Louisa Adams in the 1820s. Louisa was British, so Melania will be the first non-native speaker of English to hold the title, which is a bit bizarre considering Trump's rhetoric on immigration. Though her English is not perfect, she does speak six languages, which is very uncommon for Americans. 5 United States presidential election, 2012
2,854,744 No doubt this article was popular as readers tried to figure out how Obama won so handily in 2012 over Mitt Romney, and what changed. One thing that changed is that Donald Trump did not run on conservative Republican ideas like prior Republican candidates. 6 Hillary Clinton 
2,644,676 
For the duration of the campaign, Hillary's article was less popular than Trump's. See our SPECIAL REPORT. Often we ascribed this to Trump's tendency to say outrageous things and dominate media coverage, but maybe this was also showing more enthusiasm among Americans for Trump over Hillary. 7 Ivanka Trump 
2,163,529 
No doubt the most liked Trump outside core Trump-fandom. Her views regularly exceeded those of her siblings. In the report for the July 2016 week of the Republican National Convention, Ivanka placed #4, ahead of her three adult siblings. (Trump's youngest child Barron Trump is only 10 years old and should not have his own article here, if the precedent set for Malia and Sasha Obama is applied.) 8 Elizabeth II
2,053,702 
The longest-reigning British monarch in history is bound to draw attention whenever the British Royal Family becomes a topic of interest. For the second consecutive week she gets an additional boost from her appearance in The Crown, a $100 million melodrama about her early years where she is played by Claire Foy. 9 Barack Obama
2,014,336 
The outgoing president campaigned hard in favor of Hillary Clinton (#6) in the closing weeks of the campaign. Now he has to turn over power to the person who championed the awful lie of birtherism. There really is no way to sugarcoat this; it doesn't help to suggest that Donald Trump knew all along there was little to that baloney. 10 List of Presidents of the United States
1,868,016 Trump will be the first U.S. president not to hold a previous governmental office or military command. 11 Ivana Trump
1,792,261 
Ivana was Trump's first wife. Their divorce was finalized back in 1992. The only reason this is here is because of the celebrity-gossip component of Trump's fame. 12 United States presidential election, 2008
1,772,376 This was the election which Barack Obama (#9) first won. 13 Leonard Cohen
1,766,374 
The legendary cult Canadian songwriter and singer died on November 7 at age 82; his death was publicly announced on November 10. If he had died almost any other week, he would have led this chart. Though he never had a Top 40 hit, covers of his song Hallelujah have made that haunting composition very well-known. The opening skit of Saturday Night Live after the election featured Kate McKinnon as Clinton, playing the song with modified lyrics. 14 Tiffany Trump
1,548,989 
Tiffany is Trump's only child with Marla Maples (#15), his second wife. Tiffany was #10 on the chart in July when she spoke at the Republican National Convention, but generally she has kept a much lower profile than the other Trump children. Her article got more views than that of Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, possibly because people are looking more into the "lesser-known" Trump children after seeing Barron Trump on TV. 15 Marla Maples
1,524,657 
Mother of Tiffany Trump #14, second-wife of Donald Trump #1. Presumably this article got so high, just like Ivana Trump (#11), from people looking into Trump's personal history. Traditionally, America has been fairly prudish when it comes to politicians and divorce, or at least these things seemed to be big negatives for candidates. That conventional wisdom seemed to fly out the window for Trump, perhaps because the Clintons had their own issues with Bill Clinton's (#24) past history of infidelity. 16 Mike Pence
1,506,055 
The new Vice President of the United States. You have to think Pence believes he won the lottery about now. He agreed to be the vice-presidential nominee for the most unorthodox major party candidate in United States history, though even being a losing nominee would raise his stature for the rest of his life. And then they actually won. Some are speculating that Trump may not make it through a whole term or will delegate much authority to Pence, who is a much more traditional and very conservative Republican. 17 Meghan Markle
1,475,646 
The fact that this American mixed-race actress may be dating the third in line to the British throne has raised some fairly awkward questions in the British press, like whether the situation would be the same if she'd dated Prince William. Keep in mind this is the same Royal Family that nearly collapsed because the heir to the throne wanted to marry an American divorcee. 18 Donald Trump Jr.
1,345,927 
The first son of Donald Trump (#1) and Ivana Trump (#11). 19 Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon
1,308,481 
The only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II (#8), she is portrayed by Vanessa Kirby in The Crown television series. 20 United States presidential election, 2000
1,299,783 This was the last U.S. presidential election where the winner did not win the popular vote. Before 2000, it last happened in 1888. 21 George VI
1,257,510 
Queen Elizabeth's dad made an appearance The Crown, in which he is played by Jared Harris. With 1.2 million views, these are really high numbers that The Crown related articles are generating. But for the election, we would be highlighting this success more vigorously. 22 Eric Trump
1,178,795 
The second son of Donald Trump (#1) and Ivana Trump (#11). He was also the least-viewed adult Trump during the Republican National Convention week, so he appears to be the least-liked one. 23 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
1,134,259 
The husband of Queen Elizabeth II (#8), he is portrayed by Matt Smith in The Crown television series. 24 Bill Clinton 
1,101,897 
The former president and spouse of Hillary Clinton (#6). 25 Doctor Strange (film)
1,079,348 
Marvel Studios continue their roll. Their attempt to bring their unashamedly psychedelic superhero into the earthier realms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has apparently paid off, with a 90% RT rating and an $84 million opening, no doubt aided by the international star power of a certain Benedict Cumberbatch (pictured).
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- Extended list: #26 United States presidential election, 2004 (958,042); #27 President of the United States (939,454); #28 Ronald Reagan (881,618); #29 Winston Churchill (864,053); #30 The Crown (TV series) (841,567); #31 Jesus nut (724,272, due to a Reddit thread); #31 United States presidential election (717,068); #32 Jared Kushner (husband of Ivanka) (701,653); #33 George W. Bush (688,722); #34 Deaths in 2016 (687,369); #35 Westworld (TV Series) (681,020).
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 exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% 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.