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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 2 to 8, 2013

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Summary: This week belonged to Game of Thrones. A potent presence in the Top 25 since it premiered in March, this HBO TV series grabbed the top three slots this week, and only a tragic suicide prevented it from taking the top 4. The most recent episode, which saw the bloody decimation of House Stark, became an instant water-cooler sensation. The fascination spilled over from the TV series to the still unfinished novel series (take the hint, George) upon which it is based. Real world politics made a rare return to the Top 25 as well, as the word "Chapulling", an article only created 4 days ago, became a shout of defiance against the tactics used by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against initially peaceful protesters.

For the week of June 2 to 8, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Views	Notes
1	3	14	Game of Thrones	1,314,024	There is no denying it: this epic fantasy TV series is unstoppable. Viewing figures for the third season are up by a million, and the reaction to this week's bloody massacre bodes well for next week's finale.
2	4	8	Game of Thrones (season 3)	827,717	see #1 above
3	8	8	List of Game of Thrones episodes	827,553	see #1 and 2 above
4	-	-	Nafisa Khan	652,165	The tragic apparent suicide of this young Bollywood actress made headlines across India.
5	-	-	A Song of Ice and Fire	631,362	The series of novels by George R. R. Martin on which the TV series Game of Thrones (above) is based.
6	9	22	Facebook	585,492	A perennially popular article.
7	-	-	Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani	539,078	This romantic comedy is currently the 7th highest-grossing Bollywood film in history.
8	-	-	Juliane Köpcke	527,384	The young woman who fell more than 10,000 feet from a disintegrating plane and survived, only to have to walk several miles though jungle, became a talking point as a result of a Today I Learned thread on Reddit.
9	17	2	After Earth	471,632	Despite appearing on course to box-office bombhood, having grossed only $50 million worldwide in ten days against a $130 million budget, this remains the most-viewed American movie on Wikipedia.
10	-	-	The Purge	450,459	This social allegory/home invasion thriller had a strikingly good opening weekend, taking in ~$36 million on a $3 million budget, despite poor reviews.
11	16	32	Deaths in 2013	425,779	The lists of deaths in the current year is always a quite popular article.
12	-	-	The Rains of Castamere	423,514	The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones's gangbusting third season; the one showing the so-called "red wedding" and the seeming exit of House Stark from the game.
13	-	-	Arrested Development (TV series)	420,323	The long-awaited fourth season of this cult sitcom was finally released on Netflix in its entirety on May 26.
14	-	-	A Game of Thrones	410,557	The first novel in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, from which the TV series Game of Thrones takes its name.
15	24	33	World War II	405,507	Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.)
16	6	3	Fast & Furious 6	387,096	In the 22 days since its first international release, this movie has grossed $584 million worldwide. So, that's a franchise in rude health then. How rude? Part 7 comes out next year.
17	25	3	Attack on Titan	363,831	This anime series, which reaches its season finale next week, has attained cult status in the Nerdisphere despite never having been released outside Japan.
18	19	33	YouTube	358,846	Another perennially popular article
19	23	3	List of Bollywood films of 2013	356,153	Bollywood secures its eternal presence in the Top 25.
20	18	6	Aashiqui 2	351,609	This film has grossed over Rs. 1 billion (~US$18 million) at the Indian box office, and become a phenomenon on the sub-continent.
21	-	-	The Last of Us	340,944	This eagerly awaited and critically adored zombie apocalypse video game gets released on June 13.
22	-	-	Chapulling	333,901	An article only four days old about a word barely any older, this Anglicised form of the Turkish çapulcu (meaning "looters") was appropriated by the protesters in Istambul's Taksim Square after being described as such by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose adversarial response to the protests has arguably served only to inflame them.
23	21	22	Google	331,496	A perennially popular article.
24	15	6	Daft Punk	327,957	This robot-helmet-wearing, cyberpunk-infused electronic music duo released their long-awaited new album Random Access Memories on May 17.
25	-	-	Man of Steel (film)	325,607	The second attempt to rework the Superman mythos for modern cinema after Bryan Singer's reverent but turgid Superman Returns arguably has a better chance of success, with the backing of Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan.

• 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). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
  • Cat anatomy: explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts
  • G: This, or alternately G-force, 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.
  • Cult: Unknown reasons for periodic spikes in popularity
  • Melanie Maddison: high counts for a redlink are usually due to spambots or pranksters.
  • Ernst Litfaß: A periodic visitor to the Top 25, Litfaß (or Litfass) was the German inventor of advertising columns. Whether the views are the work of a spambot with a sense of humour is unknown. The German Wikipedia's version sees no view spike when this occurs.
  • Hollow Body Guitar (or, alternately Acoustic Electric Guitar): This redirect (capitals included) has occasionally appeared in the top 25, probably due to a sadly confused adware bot.
• Specific removals this week (those for which no reason for their sudden popularity could be determined):
  • Jim Lovell: This all-American hero, made immortal by Tom Hanks in the film Apollo 13, got a massive spike in views on June 2 and 3, for reasons unknown.
  • Rosetta Stone: The imposing black stele in the British Museum and perpetual metaphor saw an anomalous 1-day spike on June 7; perhaps not coincidentally the day after Rosetta Stone Inc. announced the pricing of its stocks. Since it was only for a day, that might be due to a spambot whose programmer either a) had no idea how Wikipedia works or b) (tragically just as likely) had no idea there was an actual Rosetta Stone.
  • Second Congo War: The bloodiest conflict since World War II, with up to 5 million dead, has received little attention outside Africa. And then a massive spike on June 4-5 sent it into the Top 25. It would be nice to think that was due to human interest, but as yet we cannot say.
• Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 325,607. Last week: 330,123
• Almosts: The Fast and the Furious (series) (310,966 views); IPv6 ( 307,845 views); The Great Gatsby (304,033 views)
• The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create list: [1]