Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 6 to 12, 2014)

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Summary: Death hangs over the list this week, literally. The top three slots were devoted to celebrity death, with the most tragic, the inexplicable demise of Peaches Geldof, taking up two additional slots. The tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continued to haunt the edges of this list as well. While wrestling is a fixture on this list, this week it intersected with the theme of tragedy, with The Ultimate Warrior dying suddenly at the age of just 54 and The Undertaker suffering a concussion during WrestleMania XXX. Of course, the return of Game of Thrones had an impact, though less than I expected. Finally, this was a banner week for Reddit, with four slots devoted to Reddit topics.

For the week of April 6 to 12, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Views	Notes
1	-	-	Peaches Geldof	1,433,706	The daughter of Bob Geldof died suddenly on 7 April at the age of just 25, leaving behind two small children. Though she had been principally famous for her unusual name (her middle name was Honeyblossom) the tragedy and mystery of her as-yet unexplained death left the UK somewhat reeling.
2	-	-	Mickey Rooney	1,197,731	The onetime child star, who succeeded Shirley Temple as Hollywood's biggest box office draw in the 1940s, died on 6 April at the age of 93. He began his career in the silent era at the age of six, but, at the time of his death, had two completed films on his resume still to be released. According to IMDB, he had at least one screen credit for 84 of the last 88 years, giving him one of the longest acting careers in film history. Towards the end of his life, he became arguably more famous for his family troubles, which included eight marriages and accusing his stepchildren of abuse. Even his burial has been the subject of a bitter family battle.
3	-	-	The Ultimate Warrior	897,251	The two-time WWE Intercontinental Champion died suddenly and unexpectedly on 8 April at the age of just 54, only one day after making an appearance at WWE Raw, from which that picture is taken. Born James Brian Hellwig, he legally changed his name to simply "Warrior" in 1993, a name now carried by his two daughters, Mattigan and Indiana Warrior.
4	6	24	Game of Thrones	826,454	Given this show's previous dominion over this list, its somewhat sparse appearance in the wake of its 6 April season premiere is a bit of a surprise.
5	-	-	Cicciolina	776,558	News on this onetime pornstar and Italian MP is fairly sparse, triggering suspicions of (ahem) inflation; however, she did announce that she was planning to run for Mayor of Rome the day of her eponymous spike, so it is possible that interest is due to that. 800,000 hits worth of interest though? For someone whose main claims to fame were continuing to make hardcore porn while in Parliament and taking her top off during a debate?
6	-	-	Hannah Montana	709,725	One suggested title for the Disney Channel show that launched the career of Miley Cyrus was "Alexis Texas", a fact that became a topic of debate on Reddit this week.
7	-	-	WrestleMania XXX	700,130	WrestleMania is always a popular topic on this site, but this year's was particularly noteworthy, as it featured one of the last appearances by The Ultimate Warrior before his death and 21-time winner The Undertaker receiving a concussion (see below)
8	-	-	Bob Geldof	669,503	The onetime pop star and activist who launched Live Aid, Band Aid and Live 8 suffered a second tragedy in his already tragic private life when his daughter Peaches (see above) was found dead this week, in a manner eerily similar to her mother (and his ex-wife) Paula Yates (see below).
9	-	-	Percy Lavon Julian	648,921	The African American grandson of slaves who went on to develop several means to manufacture drugs and hormones from plants (which would ultimately lead to the invention of the pill) got a Google Doodle on what would have been his 115th birthday on 11 April.
10	-	-	Paula Yates	638,507	The death of Peaches Geldof with her 11-month-old still-living son by her side brought back disturbing memories of the death of her mother, Paula Yates, who had died of a heroin overdose when Peaches was just 11, with her then-four-year-old sister Tiger Lily still in the house. Her second husband, INXS singer Michael Hutchence, had himself committed suicide just three years earlier.
11	20	2	Game of Thrones (season 4)	533,771	As usual, people will be using this page to look up air dates.
12	-	-	The Undertaker	508,476	After a 21-match winning streak, the four-time WWE champion exited Wrestlemania XXX with a concussion.
13	8	55	Deaths in 2014	485,095	The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
14	-	-	List of Game of Thrones episodes	475,718	Most likely air dates again.
15	-	-	Ryan Fitzpatrick	412,962	An odd one this. It's another Reddit thread, inspired by an op-ed by one Jake O'Donnell for the website SportsGrid. And it wasn't about Fitzpatrick, but specifically about his Wikipedia article. More specifically, the picture to the left. Yes, that very picture. Which Jake didn't like. At all. In fact, he says it makes Fitzpatrick look like a "moron", "dumb" and a "velociraptor-human hybrid", which frankly, is super cool, so I don't know what he's complaining about.
16	5	10	Amazon.com	410,914	This article has been veering wildly (and suspiciously) around the view graph for several weeks, but at least now its presence on the list has a reason: Amazon Fire TV, announced this week, is a digital streaming device to watch online content on a HDTV. How it distinguishes itself from the three or four other such devices currently on the market is a matter of some dispute.
17	19	6	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.	392,116	Joss Whedon's extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television returned on 1 April after a three-week hiatus.
18	-	-	Barber's pole	368,894	Apparently, two barber's poles next to each other spinning in opposite directions are used to signify a brothel in Korea, a fact that triggered a Reddit thread.
19	12	65	Facebook	355,478	A perennially popular article.
20	-	-	Cliff Young (athlete)	333,282	The 61-year-old Australian sheep-farmer who beat all comers in a 544-mile race from Sydney to Melbourne in 1983 got a mention in a website called unrealfacts.com, which is either a coincidence or a potential new tool in my box.
21	10	17	Frozen (2013 film)	299,268	Disney's Oscar-winning juggernaut got a shot in the arm thanks to its release on DVD on March 18. Despite this, it has already overtaken Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as Disney's highest-grossing film in theatres.
22	-	-	Macintosh	284,259	When developing the Macintosh computer, Steve Jobs wanted to add a small mysterious character who would appear after about every 1000 times you used an OS UI element. He would wink at you and disappear so fast that you wouldn't be sure he was real. A fact which triggered yet another Reddit thread.
23	18	37	List of Bollywood films of 2014	278,806	An established staple of the top 25 returns.
24	-	-	Indian general election, 2014	273,903	Nearly one sixth of the world's population is currently in the process of voting for their next leader, and the stakes are high. The economy is slowing while unemployment is rising. The ruling Congress Party is widely regarded as ineffectual and nepotistic. The populist opposition leader, Narendra Modi, has an excellent economic record as governor of the state of Gujarat but is also a staunch Hindu nationalist who stood back when a pogrom against Muslims in his state claimed over 1000 lives in 2002. In the face of all this, small parties are rising, though their impact has yet to be fully grasped.
25	14	5	Malaysia Airlines Flight 370	257,829	The search area has been narrowed to 22,000 square miles, as signals from the site finally ceased.

Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 257,829. Last week: 242,802.

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

Almosts: United States (253,778 views); Wikipedia (252,514 views); A Song of Ice and Fire (251,309 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.

- Java/JOP: Since both of these articles are tied (verbally at least) to the programming language, it seems likely that this is a bot searching for that.
- Climatic Research Unit email controversy: 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 allowed 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: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
- History of Bălţi: There is simply no logical way to explain the sudden rise of this hyper-obscure article except as the result of a traffic-checking botnet, ala cat anatomy
- Malware: It is perfectly in character for malware to look up malware.
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.

Specific exclusions this week:

- Slander/Archtop: When a "popular" article links to a redirect, and the main page shows no evidence of a similar bump, you can be pretty sure it's an artificial spike.
- Challenger 2: artificial-ishly flat-topped spike on 6/7 April.