Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 24 to 30, 2017)
editPrepared with commentary by OZOO
← Last week's report – Next week's report →
Reading Wikipedia for the Images
editThe big story this week was the death of American magazine publisher Hugh Hefner, with the Playboy editor topping the list with his third-and-final wife Crystal Hefner in second; and Hugh's second wife Kimberley Conrad (#14), daughter Christie Hefner (#7) and former romantic partners Holly Madison (#17) and Kendra Wilkinson (#23) also getting into the list. Third place goes to the new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery, which began this week.
Last week's number one, It, drops down to fourth, with the original novel staying afloat at #24 and the three other films from last week's list all staying in, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (#10), mother! (#22) and Kingsman: The Secret Service (#25). In political news, the German federal election, 2017 (#19) has seen a reduced advantage for Chancellor Merkel, while comments made by President Trump on the American football player Colin Kaepernick lifted that article up to #13, with the response from American football teams also dragging in the articles on "The Star-Spangled Banner" (#15) and player and former Army Captain Alejandro Villanueva (#16). Trump has also made comments about the hurricane-hit territory of Puerto Rico (#5) which some have suggested were... less than appropriate.
Relationship news! Kylie Jenner and partner Travis Scott are in #20 and #21 following reports Jenner that is pregnant, while Meghan Markle is up at #8 after she made her first appearance with Prince Harry. Miscellaneously, American scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa (#18) was the subject of a Google Doodle; Cardi B (#11) is topping the Billboard Hot 100 music charts; and a new TV series prompted interest in murderers Lyle and Erik Menendez. (#9) And, for people who don't like any of that but do like wrestling, there's some wrestling in 12th.
For the week of September 24 to 30, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Hugh Hefner 4,399,770 Hugh Hefner, the American businessman, magazine publisher, and / or pornographer, died on September 27 at the age of 91. He is best – well, almost exclusively – known as the editor-in-chief of men's "lifestyle and entertainment" magazine, Playboy. He has reportedly requested his ashes be interred in the same crypt as actress Marilyn Monroe, whose early pictures were used in the first issue of Playboy. Monroe's possible thoughts on being interred with Hefner are not recorded. 2 Crystal Hefner 976,094 Crystal Harris, the Playboy "Playmate of the Month" for December 2009, became the third wife of Hugh Hefner (#1) on December 31, 2012; and remained his wife up to his death this week. 3 Star Trek: Discovery 928,582 Presenting the 7th exciting series about a group of travellers Star Trekkin' across the universe. The first new Star Trek series to be broadcast since 2005 debuted on CBS on September 24. Stars of the series include Sonequa Martin-Green (pictured) as the protagonist Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as alien Saru; and hello to Jason Isaacs, popping up as USS Discovery captain Gabriel Lorca. 4 It (2017 film) 911,385 Dropping down three places after three weeks at number one. It has now made over $555 million worldwide and has broken The Exorcist's 44-year record as the top grossing horror movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation). The sequel is set for release on September 6, 2019; so I'll add it as #1 in my draft report for that week now. 5 Puerto Rico 787,694 Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States; and was recently badly affected by Hurricane Maria. The hurricane has devastated the island, completely destroying the power grid – leaving all 3.4 million residents without electricity – and knocking out ninety-five percent of the island's cell phone networks. The US government has been criticised for its initial failure to waive the Jones Act, which prevented Puerto Rico from receiving any aid and supplies from non-U.S.-flagged vessels; and San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz has ended up in a war of words with Donald, 71, a president from Washington, over his administration's response. In Donald's defence, though, there is a big blue wet thing in the way with no known way to cross it. 6 Deaths in 2017 742,109 In the words of Welsh footballer Neville Southall: "Imagine walking down your street and all you dead relatives were lampposts. Brilliant." I think that's the most intelligent thing posted on Twitter all year. 7 Christie Hefner 701,326 Christie Hefner, the daughter of Hugh Hefner (#1) and his first wife Mildred Williams, served as CEO of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 to 2009. 8 Meghan Markle 685,043 Meghan Markle: Actress, model, humanitarian, princess? The Suits and Fringe actress has been known to be in a relationship with the United Kingdom's Prince Harry for a considerable time now, and has made her first public appearance with the prince at the opening ceremony for the 2017 Invictus Games. There are a few questions already asked about the possibility of marriage – which should be OK, because there is no historical precedent for American divorcees causing difficulties for the royals. As a British citizen myself, the one question about the marriage I want answered is; will we get a day off work like last time? 9 Lyle and Erik Menendez 671,611 Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1994 for the 1989 murders of their parents, entertainment executive José and his wife, Mary ("Kitty"). During the trial, the brothers claimed that the murders stemmed from years of sexual and psychological abuse that they had suffered at the hands of their parents; the jury rejected these claims and the two brothers were sentenced to life without parole. The murders are the subjects of the first season of the new true crime anthology series Law & Order True Crime, a spin off from the Law & Order franchise, the first episode of which was broadcast on September 26, 2017 on NBC. 10 Kingsman: The Golden Circle 631,951 The action spy sequel has held its US box office lead, triumphing over It by just $33,000. The film includes a number of big names, with new names like Halle Berry, Channing Tatum and Julianne Moore joining returning performers like Colin Firth (pictured), Taron Egerton, Sophie Cookson and Mark Strong, but the film has received extremely polarised reviews, currently scoring 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. 11 Cardi B 616,022 Belcalis Almanzar, who chooses to spell her name CΛRDI B, released her debut single for Atlantic Records, "Bodak Yellow", on June 16, 2017. After debuting at number 85 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on July 22, the song has risen up the chart over the months to dethrone Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" and top the charts for the week ending September 26. CΛRDI is the first American solo female rapper to top the Billboard chart since Lauryn Hill in 1998. 12 No Mercy (2017) 611,423 September 24 saw yet another WWE pay-per-view event, the thirteenth WWE No Mercy event, which was held at the Staples Center, Los Angeles. As seems usual for these events, the headline fight was for the WWE Universal Championship, which was retained by Brock Lesner, as it was at the last major PPV all the way back in August. The next major WWE pay-per-view event shall be Hell in a Cell, which shall be on October 8 and will no doubt get an update on this list shortly afterwards. 13 Colin Kaepernick 599,051 You may recall a fracas last September where then San Francisco 49ers quarterback Kaepernick knelt during the pre-game playing of the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" (#15), in order to protest the recent shootings of black Americans by police officers. One year later, Kaepernick is not currently contracted to an NFL team. Whether his political protest is the reason for this is a subject of some discussion. If it is, however, one man who will be pleased is President Trump, who took time from his busy schedule of feuding with Mayor Cruz to call for all protesting players (in his words "sons-of-bitches") to be fired. A significant number of American footballers protested during the anthem prior to subsequent games 14 Kimberley Conrad 591,897 Hugh Hefner's (#1) second wife, Conrad transformed the famous Playboy Mansion (pictured) into a conservative household for her children. 15 The Star-Spangled Banner 590,161 Protests have taken place during the playing of the American anthem prior to National Football League matches. My view as a Brit is that it is very strange to play the anthem before every game. If they made us listen to "God Save the Queen" before every Premier League match I'd be furious, and not just because it's a dirge of a song. 16 Alejandro Villanueva (American football) 518,884 Villanueva, an offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a former captain in the United States Army, was the only Steelers player to appear publicly for the anthem ceremony prior to their September 24 game against Chicago Bears. 17 Holly Madison 464,423 Holly Madison, former Playboy model and author of the memoir Down the Rabbit Hole, was in a relationship with Hugh Hefner between 2001 and 2008. 18 Gloria E. Anzaldúa 460,686 Gloria E. Anzaldúa, the American scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, was the subject of Google's Doodle on September 26, 2017; the date marking the 75th anniversary of her birth. 19 German federal election, 2017 413,732 Elections for members of the 19th Bundestag were held throughout Germany on 24 September. Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) and her party CDU/CSU has kept the lead but received its lowest vote share since 1949, with their former coalition partners the Social Democrat Party suffering their worst result since the Second World War. The far-right Alternative for Germany party took their first seats in the Bundestag and are now the third largest party. Merkel is likely to try and form a coalition; with the most likely prospect being a "Jamaica coalition" of the CDU/CSU (black), the Free Democratic Party (yellow) and the Greens (um... green). 20 Kylie Jenner 400,623 Kylie Jenner, daughter of Caitlyn and Kris Jenner, sister to Kendall Jenner and half-sister to Kim, Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian, was reported this week to be pregnant. Best of luck to her. 21 Travis Scott 397,184 American rapper Travis Scott is known to be in a relationship with Kylie Jenner (#20), and reportedly contributed to her pregnancy. 22 Mother! 388,099 mother! (lowercase m and exclamation mark both part of title), the film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Jennifer Lawrence (pictured) and Javier Bardem, is still attracting interest, despite, or perhaps because of, scoring an "F" grade with CinemaScore raters. This may be a result of people going to the cinema expecting to see a new film starring Lawrence, star of such audience-friendly fare as The Hunger Games and X-Men, and instead getting an allegorical psychological horror film. It just goes to show. What it goes to show, I'm not sure yet. 23 Kendra Wilkinson 384,571 Kendra Wilkinson, television personality and model, was in a relationship with Hugh Hefner (#1) from 2004 to 2008. 24 It (novel) 360,780 The original novel by Stephen King (pictured) on which #4 was based is still attracting interest. 25 Kingsman: The Secret Service 346,013 The original Kingsman film, which like its sequel (#10) starred Colin Firth, Taron Egerton and Mark Strong but also had Samuel L. Jackson amongst others in its cast; was better received than the follow up, at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes to 50%. Still, I think the production company will be happy. It is always a good sign when a film drags up its sequel.
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.