Summary: Despite a relatively high view count for the top spot, this list had the lowest point of entry since the week of January 27. As with most low-ranking lists, it is dominated by pop-culture (current TV series, popular websites, sports, celebrity gossip), or by holdovers from previous weeks (Pope Francis, Harlem Shake). The only notable intrusions from the Real World were St Patrick's Day, which garnered two slots, and Cyprus, which has scared enough of the world for anyone to want to keep an eye on it. Curiously, the only film opening this week on this list is Spring Breakers; the top two films at the box office (The Croods and Olympus Has Fallen) didn't even break the top 75 on Wikipedia.
For the week of March 17 to March 23, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Every man has his day, at least if he's a saint. And when your day happens to involve copious alcohol consumption and opportunities for gradeschool cruelty, it is bound to be popular. A Google Doodle doesn't hurt either.
The American television series, currently airing in third season, is enjoying increasing popularity. Though it has actually declined in views since last week, the low overall view count has increased its ranking.
For some utterly inexplicable reason, a movie about buxom former Disney starlets running around Florida in skimpy bikinis while shooting off giant guns proved immensely popular this week.
This tinycountry-in-a-country got some worldwide attention on March 22 when its football team was subjected to a staggeringly unfair World Cup qualifier against England, whose citizens outnumber its own by roughly 16,000 to 1. They lost 8–0, in case you were wondering.
Both the second attempt at a Psycho TV series and the second attempt at a prequel, this stands a good chance of being better than both of those feeble incarnations, and also at being the most popular novel-based-film-based serial killer TV series. At least until Hannibal comes out in two weeks.
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). Notable removals this week: G-force; this has been in the Top 25 since the list was started at the beginning of the year. The continuing popularity of this article, which jumped in June 2012, has been without explanation. Articles on popular scientific concepts get nowhere this level of viewing based on our analysis to date, e.g., Gravitation (49,516 views from March 3–9), and therefore we have decided to remove it from the list as most likely caused by non-human views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish); Cat anatomy (explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts); Aho–Corasick string matching algorithm (765,138 views); New Brunswick (431,139 views due to a sudden, sustained rise on March 19) and Hollow Body Guitar (398,715 views) a perpetual addition likely due to spambots.
Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 317,443. Last week: 358,386.
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