Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/August 12 to 18, 2018

The Top 25 Report

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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 12 to 18, 2018)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga (with help from some useful anonymous users)

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R-E-P-O-R-T, find out what it means to me

When a famous musician dies, it's to be expected that the commotion will be enough for its Wikipedia article to be the most seen of the week. And when it's someone with a storied career like Aretha Franklin, numbers will be huge (narrowly missing the 5 million mark!) and relatives might even appear too - in her case, ex-husband Glynn Turman (#22). And our #2, former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, shows two of the week's most present topics, death and India: the former has four deceased (#1, #2, #13, #14) and the yearly list (#6), the latter has one death (#2), one engagement (#12 - the American fiancé is #8), one holiday (#11) and two movies (#17, #23), and are also contestants in the 2018 Asian Games (#7). Hollywood has four movies (#9, #10, #15, #25) and an actor (#21), Google (#5) and Reddit (#19) bring one article each, and otherwise things are scattered: Trump's former friends worsening his reputation (#3), golf champions (#4), a controversial Netflix series (#16), new music by a pop star (#18), the FIFA World Cup still strong a month after ending (#20), and a collapsing bridge (#24).

For the week of August 12 to 18, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	About
1	Aretha Franklin		4,997,992		The "Queen of Soul", responsible for immortal songs such as "Respect", "Chain of Fools", and "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman", died at 76 of a pancreatic cancer that had prevented her from public concerts since November. And to think now all the "musical guests" out of The Blues Brothers (where Aretha has a memorable performance singing "Think") are no longer with us.
2	Atal Bihari Vajpayee		3,371,692		Atal Bihari Vajpayee, three-time Prime Minister of India from 1996 to 2004, passed away on 16 August (the same day as Franklin) at the elder age of 93. A chief leader in Asia, Vajpayee was responsible for making India a major nuclear power with the Pokhran-II tests, and eased tensions in South Asia after arranging peace talks with Pakistan. (Does it count that these talks happened to be held right after fighting a war with them?)
3	Omarosa Manigault Newman		901,876		After the controversial release of her novel Unhinged (2018), Omarosa, former political aide to Godfather Drumpf, released four secret tapes, the first of which was recorded in the Situation Room, regarded as a major security breach. She also claimed, among others, that the Big Boss would deport his trouble and strife if she dare breach their relationship. Seems like those are enough reasons to justify her appearance on this report.
4	Brooks Koepka		873,589		Koepka won the 2018 PGA Championship, which combined with the U.S. Open back in June makes him the first golfer to win this double since Tiger Woods.
5	Ebenezer Cobb Morley		827,500		Ebenezer Cobb Morley was an English soccer player footballer who was a solicitor by profession. Widely regarded as the father of the Football Association (FA) and modern football, Morley was the first secretary and second president of the FA. To commemorate his great contribution to the world (IMO, of course) he was honoured with a Google Doodle on what would have been his 187th birthday.
6	Deaths in 2018		782,780		Views raised, as a few prominent figures (#1, #2, #13, #14) died. Yet the page fell from #2, as this time people had more things to look for than just deaths.
7	2018 Asian Games		763,073		The Asian Games, which are held once in four years, opened in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia on August 18. This year's event, which was earlier supposed to be held in Vietnam (Sad!), marks the first time the Games are hosted by more than one city. To add to that, eSports are possibly on its way to be recognised as an official sport next time, as the competition, along with canoe polo, is being contested as a demonstration sport. (Hmm... Seems like I could try a hand.) Which country are you rooting for?
8	Nick Jonas		709,154		The youngest of the Jonas Brothers publicly announced his engagement to our #12.
9	Crazy Rich Asians (film)		618,889		Representativity is good for business: after what Black Panther did for African Americans, it's time for Asian Americans in this novel adaptation where Constance Wu (pictured) plays a woman who travels to meet her boyfriend's family, only to find them to be among the richest in Singapore. Crazy Rich Asians got glowing reviews and also opened atop the box office, beating our next entry.
10	The Meg		611,490		Jason Statham vs. giant shark, now that's a high-concept. Don't know if it's any good (shark movies aside from Jaws usually aren't, and reviews are mixed to bad), but it has made some money, opening atop the US box office (before our #9 pushed it down to second) and having so far grossed $300 million worldwide.
11	Independence Day (India)		584,400		Another year with India taking August 15 to remember the Indian Independence Act 1947. #17 and #23 show they took the holiday to catch up on Bollywood's latest.
12	Priyanka Chopra		554,836		Still on India, this Bollywood superstar announced her engagement to #8. And given her musical career, maybe the couple can collaborate sometime.
13	Jim Neidhart		466,848		Former WWF champion and father of a current WWE diva\champion, "The Anvil" died at the age of 63.
14	Kofi Annan		460,934		Former UN Secretary General and Ghanese diplomat Kofi Annan died at the age of 80. Annan played a major role in reforming the UN's bureaucratic structure and was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 along with the organisation. After retiring from the UN in 2006, he continued to work for international development with his foundation.
15	Avengers: Infinity War		440,283		With such staying power for the most ambitious Marvel movie, it might not surprise you that Infinity War is also the most seen article of 2018 so far, with more than 29 million views. It's up in the air on whether last year will repeat or Thanos will conquer death.
16	Insatiable (TV series)		420,007		Netflix is no stranger to controversies with its original shows, such as 13 Reasons Why and Dear White People. But Insatiable, where Debby Ryan (pictured) portrays a formerly obese beauty pageant seeking grisly revenge upon her bullies, managed to cause an uproar even before release, with a massive petition to cancel the show accusing it of being fat shaming and such. The show is now out, and instead Insatiable seems to have worse problems, namely uneven writing filled with enough stereotyping, bad jokes and attempts at being "woke" to warrant some reviews claiming it's the worst Netflix show ever.
17	Gold (2018 film)		383,183		Ice hockey has produced some well-known movies, such as The Mighty Ducks, Miracle and Slap Shot. Well, this might be the first film based on field hockey, a fictional take on India's gold medal at the 1948 Summer Olympics in former colonizer Britain - just one year after the country had become independent (#11).
18	Ariana Grande		379,506		This short but vocally powerful pop singer released her latest album, Sweetener.
19	Potato paradox		369,976		Reddit learned about the calculation where dehydrating potatoes by a seemingly minuscule amount leads to a huge change of mass.
20	2018 FIFA World Cup		368,882		It's been a month, but readers still want to remember all the football that happened in Russia. For some people, the Cup probably isn't over until they complete the sticker album!
21	Ryan Reynolds		362,496		Reynolds has more than the digital release of Deadpool 2 to keep himself busy and on the news: The Little Stranger will be released in the end of the month, he's filming Michael Bay's next movie and prepping up another Deadpool flick, and while visiting The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Reynolds drank some disgusting stuff.
22	Glynn Turman		360,905		The death of Aretha Franklin (#1) brought to proeminence her best known ex-husband, an actor with a long career in TV (House of Lies, The Wire) and film (Gremlins, Super 8).
23	Satyameva Jayate (2018 film)		351,139		John Abraham (pictured) stars in this action movie named after the national motto of India, released on the holiday at #11 and still making some big crore in spite of having to dispute audiences with #17.
24	Ponte Morandi		350,934		Ponte Morandi (literally Morandi bridge), named after its creator Riccardo Morandi, is a part of the Polcevera viaduct in Genoa, Italy. The bridge partially collapsed during a torrential rainstorm after being hit by lightning on 14 August, resulting in the death of 43 people. It cost ₤3.8 billion to build in the period of 1963-1967, which seems like a huge amount.
25	Mission: Impossible – Fallout		347,951		The sixth installment in the Tom Cruise Must Have a Death Wish series, where the portrayer of Ethan Hunt does a HALO jump, drives a motorcycle helmetless against traffic, jumps between rooftops, and climbs a rope dangling from a helicopter, all without doubles. Unsurprisingly, the movie is so adrenaline-filled critics loved it and it has already broken $500 million in the worldwide box office.

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 12 to 18, 2018)

Exclusions

• 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.

• BTS (band), artificial boosts - we are onto you, and you will not make the report if you perpetuate this malevolent gaming of the system. Perhaps heed this quote from your band - "Live your life. It’s yours anyway. Don’t try too hard. It’s okay to lose."

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.