Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 23 to March 1, 2014) Information

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Summary: There's nothing like a good old bit of Cold War nostalgia, combined with a suitably scary international incident, to focus our attention on the real world, and the rapidly unfolding, or toppling, situation in Ukraine clearly has tingled our collective nape, as people searched out the players and places involved in what could be the most destabilising event since the Yugoslav Wars. The Winter Olympics continued to haunt the list as well, no doubt buoyed by those same events. That said, nothing could stem our outpouring of affection for the beloved comedian Harold Ramis, whose death managed to top the week in the face of those international concerns, or our renewed interest in Tonya Harding on the 20th anniversary of her "incident".

For the week of February 23 to March 1, 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	Notes
1	-	-	Harold Ramis		1,158,070	Nothing guarantees Wikipedia attention like a sudden and unexpected death, and Ramis's death at only 69 appeared to come out of the blue. People rocked in sudden recognition of the director who gave us such beloved comedies as Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation and Groundhog Day, though most probably mourned him as the guy who played huggable nerd Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters.
2	11	2	Ukraine		700,513	Things are moving fast in the country, from protest to revolution to armed hostility. It has now reached the point where anything I say will probably be obsolete by the time this is published. But it's fair to say things are getting pretty hairy; the last time Vladimir Putin asserted his manhood to his near neighbours, the conflict lasted a week. Here's hoping a similar outcome prevails now.
3	5	5	True Detective (TV series)		633,432	This HBO police procedural stars Woody Harrelson and actor-of-the-moment Matthew McConaughey
4	-	-	Crimea		606,887	The evil of a strategic position is to be the plaything of great powers, and, 160 years after inspiring the war that gave us the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Siege of Sevastopol,* the balaclava, and Florence Nightingale, the hapless peninsula has become so again. *The first one, anyway
5	-	-	Internet		506,413	I'm giving this the benefit of the doubt for now; there's no reason for people not to be interested in the thing off of which they are currently reading. However I suspect that it might follow IPv6 to the Exclusions list before too long.
6	6	60	Facebook		482,478	A perennially popular article, though some may find the current numerical position apropos.
7	10	49	Deaths in 2014	List	460,121	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
8	-	-	Joaquín Guzmán Loera		441,481	Some consider this head of the Sinaloa Cartel to be the most powerful drug lord of all time; even surpassing the infamous Pablo Escobar, so much so that Chicago police named him public enemy number one- the last person so named was Al Capone, and he lived in that city. His arrest on 22 February may be a harbinger of better things. Or not- the last time he was in prison, he just bribed the guards and walked out.
9	2	3	House of Cards (U.S. TV series)		441,280	The second season of this political thriller series was released in its entirety on Netflix on 13 February
10	1	5	2014 Winter Olympics		404,604	The 2014 Winter Olympics ended last week, but the impending Paralympics kept it in the public mind. Thanks to Russia's vicious anti-gay laws, roundly condemned political imprisonments, and questionable behaviour with his neighbours, the event has become, whether Russia wanted it to or not, a lightning rod for modern civil rights protest.
11	-	-	Trojan War (film)		366,449	The 1997 Jennifer Love Hewitt movie, which made a grand total of $309 at the US box office on a budget of $15 million, became a topic of discussion on Reddit this week.
12	-	8	Bitcoin		352,390	The oddball digital currency that is mostly beloved of radical libertarians is back in the news this week. Bankers have (prematurely?) suggested it may prove a legitimate competitor to real money, even though many argue they are best described as a store of value rather than a functional currency. A frequent visitor to the top 25, it's probably back in the running due to a number of high-profile thefts which have shaken people's belief in its value.
13	-	-	Yulia Tymoshenko		342,065	The former Prime Minister of Ukraine was released from prison by her successor and nemesis Victor Yanukovich, who had jailed her on charges of corruption, which is very much "pot vs kettle". Nonetheless, despite his having fled the country, she's finding her support dwindling among the instigators of the revolution, who see her not so much as a martyr as a member of the old guard and, unfairly or not, still a kettle.
14	-	-	Elimination Chamber (2014)	Unassessed.	323,705	The latest WWE pantomime was held on 23 February in Minneapolis.
15	18	22	The Walking Dead (TV series)		313,582	The show's fourth season recommenced on 9 February.
16	20	11	Frozen (2013 film)		311,299	Disney's de facto sequel to Tangled has become something of a sensation. It reclaimed the top spot in the US charts on its sixth weekend (a feat only matched by Avatar and Titanic), has already outgrossed its quasi-predecessor both domestically and worldwide, and this week joined the exclusive $1 billion club. I must say I'm looking forward to the phenomenon fading, as it means I won't constantly hear that Madonna song in my head every time I do this.
17	24	23	United States		306,573	The 8th most popular article of 2013 and the 3rd most popular Wikipedia article between 2010 and 2012. Even when not on the list, this article is a perpetual bubble-under-er. Not really surprising that the country with by far the most English speakers would be the most popular on the English Wikipedia.
18	-	-	Migos		302,131	The US hip-hop trio released their new mixtape, No Label 2, on 25 February. I have yet to determine if their name has anything to do with fungoid abominations from frigid Yuggoth.
19	21	9	Wikipedia		287,616	Wikipedia returns to its own Top 25 for the second week.
20	4	2	WhatsApp		276,474	The mobile messaging service, which has a reputation as the site kids use to avoid their parents snooping on their Facebook pages, exploded into the public sphere when people wondered why on Earth Facebook would pay $19 billion for it.
21	-	-	Viktor Yanukovych		272,211	The now-former President of Ukraine has fled to Russia after being deposed in a revolution/coup d'état- take your pick. Apparently he failed to learn one of the first rules of staying in power; don't order snipers to murder unarmed protesters, especially if those unarmed protesters have friends with smartphones.
22	-	3	The Walking Dead (season 4)		257,640	People are undoubtedly using this page to look up air dates.
23	-	-	Tonya Harding		254,704	The 20th anniversary of the attack on her competitor Nancy Kerrigan, and the soap-opera that ensued, was the subject of a documentary, Nancy & Tonya, on 23 February. It is a bit odd that she, and not her victim, would be the focus of attention, but then, she was arguably the active agent in that particular drama.
24	-	-	Godzilla (2014 film)		247,074	Hollywood's second stab at retooling the Kantō-conquering kaiju for a Western audience looks certain to be better-received than the last one, thanks to some fairly spectacular trailers (though I have to say, great as they are, the 2001 music is pushing it)
25	-	2	2018 Winter Olympics		246,408	No, you read that right; people are already looking ahead to the next Winter Olympics, which will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 246,408. Last week: 301,955.

The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create this list.

Almosts: Looney Tunes (244,129 views); Autotomy (242,073 views); Breaking Bad (241,954 views)

Exclusions

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages, 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.
- Lycos: the geriatric web portal seems to be back en vogue, for no apparent reason.
- Pornography: It could be Wikipedia users returning to their old ways, but I'd rather nip this in the bud before it becomes the next Climatic Research Unit email controversy.
- Alive/ Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.
- Java: My only guess is a bot searching for the programming language.
- Several articles related to global warming (including global warming) have been removed from this list; their continued high view counts are raising suspicions of artificial inflation. I'll believe that Climategate was #1 during a typhoon, but that it got more hits than Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving? No.
- IPv6: I have to face facts; I've been allowing this into the top 25 for months as it is the kind of issue that would appeal to web denizens (ala Bitcoin) but its insane popularity is just too high explain by human interest alone. It's getting help.
- Ddd/ 0R: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.

Specific exclusions this week:
- Valerie Videau: French children's author. With her and the redlink last week, it seems someone is using Wikipedia to search out literarily-minded French women. I suggest matchmaker.com.