Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/April 30 to May 6, 2017

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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 30 to May 6, 2017)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by OZOO

Last week's reportNext week's report

The Articles With Strong Views[edit]

There are 125 million English speakers in India. And when there's something big there, it can get really big. Top of the list this week is the new film Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1), and this list also contains the previous film in the series. (#8). And the lead actor (#7). And the lead actress (#16). And the director (#23). With all this interest, no surprise to see that Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is also top of the list of highest-grossing Indian films of all times. A list which is also on this list. (#3).

Of course, American culture can also get on the list. There's a new Marvel Cinematic Universe film at #4 and the still popular The Fate of the Furious at #24. On the smaller screen (or maybe not? Some people have really big TVs) 13 Reasons Why (#5) remains huge; a new adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale has brought people to the book (#12); a series on Albert Einstein has brought people to the physicist (#22); and the new series of American Gods has brought people to articles on both the original book and the adapted series. (#17 & #19).

In sport, both fighters in last week's big fight at Wembley keep the interest (Joshua: #6; Klitschko: #11); another WWE event pulls in the viewers (#13); and basketball star Isaiah Thomas made a points-scoring return to the courts following the death of his sister (#25). There were the standard start of May commemorations - of Cinco de Mayo (#2) and of May Day (#9). Reddit has been learning about red pandas, the Vietnam War and John Clem (#14, #18, #20). Last, but by no means least, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (#15) announced his impending retirement, which also brought interest to the Queen herself. (#21)

For the week of April 30 to May 6, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Baahubali 2: The Conclusion start Class 3,087,414
The Telugu / Tamil language (versions were made in the two languages simultaneously) historical fiction film opened on April 28th and, in just seven days, has become the highest grossing Indian film of all time. The film, a follow up to 2015's Baahubali: The Beginning (#8), was directed by S. S. Rajamouli (pictured, also #23), and stars Prabhas (#8), Anushka Shetty (#16) and Rana Daggubati.
2 Cinco de Mayo c Class 2,348,709
The commemoration of the Mexican Army's victory over the French on 5 May 1862, at the Battle of Puebla makes its standard return to the chart. The date is now associated with celebrations of Mexican-American culture. Compared to last year, the article holds onto second place and is up about 200k views.
3 List of highest-grossing Indian films list 1,575,865
After one week on release, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1), has become the highest-grossing Indian film of all time. At time of writing, our article gives a value of ₹1,227 crore for the film, which is about 190 million dollars or 175 million euro.
4 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 c Class 1,224,608
This is the fifteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and your writer has seen all of them, except for the minute the woman in front of me at Doctor Strange took to sit down. The James Gunn (pictured) directed superhero / sci-fi comedy is topping most charts worldwide, with its star cast including the likes of Vin Diesel and Kurt Russell. Worldwide, the film is currently on $430 million, which is about 390 million euro or ₹2,768 crore.
5 13 Reasons Why start Class 1,116,202
Continued popularity for Netflix's hit drama series, starring Dylan Minnette (pictured) and Katherine Langford. A second season of the drama has been commissioned, which is not surprising from a business point of view but may be slightly from an artistic view; there being, as yet, no second book to base the second season on.
6 Anthony Joshua c Class 1,043,010
Joshua claimed the WBA and IBO heavyweight boxing championships, in addition to retaining his IBF title; following his 19th straight knockout victory since becoming a professional boxer on his 29 April fight with Wladimir Klitschko (#11) at Wembley Stadium - a fight held in front of a post-war record crowd of 90,000 and setting a British record for PPV buys.
7 Prabhas start Class 879,302
Unsurprisingly high interest for the star of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1), who also appeared in the previous film in the series, Baahubali: The Beginning. Speaking of which...
8 Baahubali: The Beginning c Class 858,506
The first film in the series which was followed this week by Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1). The film is currently the fourth highest-grossing Indian film of all time, but its takings have already been almost doubled by the continuation.
9 May Day b Class 679,361
You might think that this, like Cinco de Mayo, would be an annual recurrence. But it failed to chart last year, and both it and the concurrent International Workers' Day have seen a roughly 2.5x increase in views. The May 1 spring festival has many ancient traditions associated with it, like the crowning of a May Queen, dancing round a maypole, and luring Edward Woodward to a Scottish island before burning him to death in a wicker man. All good, clean, pagan fun.
10 Deaths in 2017 list 678,371
The near-ever-present list of the deceased rises two places this week despite falling about 3000 views in total.
11 Wladimir Klitschko c Class 670,804
The Ukrainian lost his fifth fight out of sixty-nine as a professional boxer, going down to Anthony Joshua (#6) in the 11th round at Wembley Stadium. While he no longer holds any heavyweight titles, he remains the fighter to have been heavyweight champion for the longest time overall.
12 The Handmaid's Tale c Class 665,248
Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel has been adapted into a TV series for online streaming service Hulu. This placing is for the novel - the series itself misses this Top 25 by one place. The novel is set within a theocratic dictatorship which has seized control of the United States and heavily curtailed women's rights. Any similarity to any current governments, anywhere in the world, has doubtless been commented on elsewhere.
13 Payback (2017) start Class 610,444
The good people at World Wrestling Entertainment have held another one of their pay-per-view events, and, as per, it is onto this list. Eight matches were staged at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, with victors including Chris Jericho (pictured both in the promotional poster and to the left), who won the WWE United States Championship from Kevin Owens and, in the standard progression of things, lost it back to Owens two days later. In the main event, Braun Strowman defeated Roman Reigns with a Running Powerslam before striking him with a set of steel steps. That very rarely happens in snooker.
14 Red panda Good Article 567,628
Red panda? MORE LIKE REDDIT PANDA! Yes, here's r/todayilearned, and today they learned that the red panda is so unique, it is the only living creature in its genus and, indeed, in the family Ailuridae. That's a bit sad, isn't it.
15 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh c Class 561,370 The current consort to the British monarch announced his impending retirement on 4 May 2017. The announcement, not really that surprising when you consider that he is 95, was the subject of much speculation beforehand, not helped by some of the less reputable news sources deciding to publish a premature obituary. I am, like, seventy percent sure killing the Duke of Edinburgh off early is treason.
16 Anushka Shetty c Class 552,998
One of the leading actresses in Telugu cinema, Shetty stars as Devasena in the Baahubali films, including Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1)
17 American Gods (TV series) start Class 547,928
Another new TV series based on a book, although this time the series ranks first. The new Starz/Amazon Prime series, based on Neil Gaiman's novel, stars Ricky Whittle (pictured) and Emily Browning, and has received positive reviews for its pilot.
18 Vietnam War start Class 541,785
File:VNWarMontage.png
Reddit learning again, this time that the Vietnam War is known in Vietnam as the American War (or, in expansion, Resistance War Against America), which makes sense if you think about it. Interestingly, our colleagues over at the Vietnamese Wikipedia do call their article Chiến tranh Việt Nam (Vietnam War). So there you go.
19 American Gods c Class 521,578
The book on which #17 is based, written by Neil Gaiman. Always curious to see when the adaptation is bigger than the book or vice versa. Perhaps our readers were already more familiar with the works of Gaiman than of Atwood.
20 John Clem c Class 509,566
Another contribution from the Redditors, this time dealing with the tale of a Union Army drummer boy from the American Civil War who, at age 12, shot a Confederate colonel who had demanded his surrender after the Battle of Chickamauga. Following this he was promoted to sergeant, the youngest soldier ever to be a noncommissioned officer in the United States Army. He went on to be the final civil war veteran in the US Army, and reached the rank of major general following his retirement in 1916. But no, your favourite band's drummer is pretty wild as well, I guess.
21 Elizabeth II Featured Article 503,757
Elizabeth, 91, a queen from Windsor, gets into the list on the back of her husband's retirement (#15), and possibly some of the more lurid speculation that surrounded it. Incidentally, did you know she's also queen of 16 Commonwealth realms, including the Bahamas, Barbados and Tuvalu? Quite why she chooses to spend so much time in dreary old London is a mystery, considering.
22 Albert Einstein Good Article 481,035
Genius, a new TV series for National Geographic based, at least for the first series, on the life of the great physicist and relative theorizer, premiered on April 25. Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Flynn star in the series as Einstein himself.
23 S. S. Rajamouli c Class 473,650
The director of Baahubali: The Beginning (#8) & Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (#1), whose picture is getting a lot of use in this report.
24 The Fate of the Furious c Class 468,430
This is the eighth film in the The Fast and the Furious franchise, and your writer has seen... well, none of them. The F. Gary Gray directed action film is still doing very well on most charts worldwide, with its star cast including the likes of Vin Diesel and Kurt Russ... hang on....
25 Isaiah Thomas (basketball) c Class 455,378
Following the death of his sister Chyna on April 15, Isaiah Thomas returned to the courts this week to help the Boston Celtics in the 2017 NBA Playoffs. In the second game of their semi-final series against Washington Wizards, Thomas scored 53 points, one off the record for most Celtics points in a playoff match.

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.
  • Per consensus, XXX, Lali Esposito & Earth are excluded.
Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.