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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/September 21 to 27, 2014

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Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 21 to 27, 2014)

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Summary: Jews wished each other Shanah Tovah ("Good year") this week as Rosh Hashanah was our most popular article. It was also a week not dominated by heavy news and tragedies, so aside from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (#2, sixth week in the Top 10), our popular article list runs the gamut of current events including new television series Gotham (#3), the 2014 Asian Games (#4), and Reddit-fueled popularity for German director Uwe Boll (#7). In the greater Top 25, notable events included the Mars Orbiter Mission reaching Mars (#11) and the marriage of accomplished lawyer Amal Alamuddin (#21) to an American actor. There was also a great deal of bot activity in our exclusions list this week, and while this is not usually anything worth noting, an identical large spike of views hitting Scotland, England, and Marriage from 26-28 September is duly acknowledged with a chuckle.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of September 21 to 27, 2014, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Rosh Hashanah   581,893
 
 That's the Jewish New Year to the rest of us. Jews the world over ushered in the year 5775. With just over 580,000 views, that's within 10,000 of the viewcounts on the chart last year, when the holiday had to settle for the #2 spot after Lil Wayne.
2 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant   580,884
 
 ISIL continues to remain in the Top 10 for a sixth consecutive week (and eighth in the Top 25), as military action against the brutal group by a large coalition of countries begins to take shape.
3 Gotham (TV series)   577,423
 
 This American TV series is yet another reboot of the Batman franchise, and debuted on 22 September 2014.
4 2014 Asian Games   503,064
 
 The 2014 Asian Games, a pan-Asian sporting event held every four years, commenced its 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea on 19 September; the event will run through 4 October. The 2014 Games have 28 Olympic sports, as well as eight non-Olympic sports including baseball and sepak takraw (kick volleyball). The 2014 Asian Games medal table currently shows China at the 2014 Asian Games with a runaway lead, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Kazakhstan.
5 Derek Jeter   457,031
 
 This very accomplished baseball player for the New York Yankees completed his 20th and final season in Major League Baseball in the United States. In his last at-bat in his final game on 28 September, Jeter hit a single off Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz. After being replaced by a pinch runner, he received a rare ovation from Red Sox fans as he exited the field.
6 August 2014 celebrity photo leaks   454,221
 
 After dropping out of the Top 25 for a week, this tawdry story about the hack into dozens of personal files that celebrities (including Jennifer Lawrence, pictured) unwittingly stored on Apple's iCloud was back in the news with additional reports of leaked photos. And since these new leaks occurred in September, the article has been moved once again and now can be found at 2014 celebrity photo leaks.
7 Uwe Boll   453,240
 
 Boll is a German film director whose work has included many films adapted from video games, many of which are listed among the worst ever made. His article became popular this week due to a Reddit "Today I Learned" thread which noted that in attempting to get the rights to make a World of Warcraft film, Boll was told "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you."
8 Google   427,481
 
 Always a fairly popular article.
9 Deaths in 2014   412,368
 
 The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. Deaths noted this week include Frieda Szwillus on 21 September at age 112, the oldest living person in Germany; Russian mathematician Alexey Chervonenkis (22 September); former Afghan provincial governor Mullah Ghani, killed by unknown gunmen (23 September); Japanese butoh dancer Carlotta Ikeda, pictured at left (24 September); Estonian singer Jaak Joala (25 September), who also covered Western pop music in Estonian, see [nifty 1981 cover of Billy Joel's All for Leyna (25 September); British actress Maggie Stables (26 September), and Hungarian architect Antti Lovag (27 September)
10 Facebook   408,018
 
 A perennially popular article, unlikely to be unseated anytime soon by Ello.
11 Mars Orbiter Mission   382,503
 
 This spacecraft, launched in November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation, entered orbit around Mars on 24 September. It is the first interplanetary mission from India, and, much to the surprise of the rest of the world, they got it right first time.
12 List of Bollywood films of 2014   327,342
 
 A regular visitor to the Top 25. Pictured at left is Priyanka Chopra, the star of Mary Kom, which was released on 5 September.
13 Wikipedia   323,019
 
 You're on it now.
14 Infant swimming N/A 322,804
 
 This subject appears to be a popular one with Reddit, with a number of threads over time discussing the subject. Most recently, a Today I Learned thread picked up on the 21 September Did you know? entry that babies will hold their breath underwater as a matter of instinct until the age of six months.
15 Achtiname of Muhammad   296,975
 
 This ancient document allegedly ratified by Muhammad granted protection to Christian monks at a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula. It gets cited today to attempt to promote religious tolerance, though we've not tracked down the exact source of this most recent spike in viewership.
16 Night of Champions (2014)   296,253
 
 The eighth annual WWE Night of Champions event took place on 21 September 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee.
17 Hitler and Mannerheim recording N/A 287,034
 
 This secret 1942 voice recording of Adolf Hitler and Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim is the only known recording of Hitler speaking in an unofficial tone, as Reddit noted this week.
18 The Maze Runner   278,096
 
 The film based on this 2009 novel by James Dashner (pictured at left) was released in the United States on 19 September 2014.
19 Bigg Boss 8 N/A 271,958
 
 The eighth season of the Indian version of Big Brother hosted by Salman Khan (pictured at left) debuted on 21 September 2014.
20 Dali Lithograph N/A 261,478 This redirect to Salvador Dalí grew in popularity this week, though the exact source is not clear.
21 Amal Alamuddin   261,334
 
 As the story has been told tongue-in-cheek this week, this truly accomplished British lawyer recently married some American actor, who is pictured at the left.
22 The Maze Runner (film)   253,941
 
 See #18. It is not uncommon that when a film is released about a popular book, the book article gets more traffic on Wikipedia, at least initially.
22 California grizzly bear   253,577
 
 Reddit noted that "California's official state animal is extinct".
23 Ariana Grande   240,344
 
 The singer remains popular on a weekly basis, though the article received 60,000 fewer views than last week.
24 Mahatma Gandhi   234,400
 
 Less popular than Ariana Grande, that settles it. Seriously though, this is regularly a well-viewed article, with over 10,000 views a day. E.g., it is #183 on last weeks raw WP:5000, and #209 the week prior. It is a core high importance article. A view spike with unclear causes on 26 September put it into the Top 25 for this week.
25 United States   232,860
 
 Regularly a popular article, it happens to make the Top 25 in a relatively slow news week.

Exclusions

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  • This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the raw 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.

Specific exclusions this week:*

* determined by e.g. large numbers of hits from single IP addresses.

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