Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-09-06/Traffic report
Traffic report
From Phelps to Bolt to Reddit
Week of August 14–20, 2016
The Olympics reigned again this week, shifting from swimming to track as the games neared their end. Seven of the Top 10 slots are Olympic-related, as are 15 of the Top 25. But somehow the incomprehensible internet meme
Top 25
at #25.
In technical news in follow-up from
WP:TOPRED
report has been retired.
For the full top-25 lists (and archives back to January 2013), see WP:MOSTEDITED.
The ten most popular articles for the week of August 14–20, 2016, as determined from the newly revamped WP:5000 report, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Usain Bolt 3,103,335 The rhythm of the Summer Olympics went according to prediction. As swimming and Michael Phelps (#3) finished up, track took over, and Bolt took center stage, winning gold in both the 100 m and 200 m, for the third straight time. And he also won his third straight gold in the 4 × 100 m relay. Being regularly called the "greatest sprinter of all time" is not hyperbole at this point. An impressive 3.1 million views lead the chart, though well shy of the astounding 5.4 million views Phelps got last week. 2 2016 Summer Olympics 2,125,265 Holding steady at #2 for a second week, a drop of about 150,000 views. 3 Michael Phelps 1,946,890 Down from #1 last week. 4 P. V. Sindhu 1,858,843 Last week we noted that although India at the 2016 Summer Olympics was at #23 (#16 this week), the country had won no medals yet. Sindu became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal, in badminton. (And to tell you how lame American television coverage is, I had no idea badminton was a sport in the Olympics.) Sindhu was one of only two medalists from India, the second being a bronze won in women's wrestling by Sakshi Malik. Of course India's lack of medal haul regularly produces articles asking why. They are just SPORTS, people. Let's celebrate those who compete and shine. 5 Suicide Squad (film) 1,254,079 DC Cinematic Universe, which was released on August 5 to generally negative reviews. Nonetheless, it grossed $267 worldwide in its opening weekend.6 Simone Biles 935,583 The 19-year-old Olympic first-timer from America completed her medal haul with four golds (including the team competition) and one bronze. 7 Stranger Things (TV series)920,502 This E.T., The Goonies and Explorers, though aimed mostly at adults. It has been a smash hit for Netflix, evidenced by its continuing appearance on this chart – five straight weeks. The Internet has seized on even the most mundane facets of the show, such as turning minor character "Barb" into a celebrity.8 2012 Summer Olympics medal table 874,861 With over 250,000 more views than 2016 Summer Olympics medal table (#18). Everyone likes to do their statistical comparison it seems. 9 Decathlon 850,348 The competition in this traditional Olympic event was won by American Ashton Eaton (#12). Women compete in the seven-event heptathlon. Both events derive from the five-event pentathlon of the Ancient Olympic Games. 10 Rustom (film) 780,159 This Indian crime thriller featuring Akshay Kumar (pictured) was released 12 August 2016.
Week of August 21–27, 2016
Hello again,
Killing of Harambe that best illustrates what Reddit has become. These days Reddit is mostly famous in the wider media as a den of race hate, misogyny, borderline paedophilia, and every other objectionable but not strictly illegal form of behaviour. The commitment of the site's owners to free speech has meant that many of their topic threads, or subreddits, have become echo chambers of vitriol, as those who disagree are shouted down or chased off. One writer for Time
magazine has written Reddit off as unsalvageable. As such, I think Wikipedia would be better off taking on more of the job of spreading word of its content.
The ten most popular articles for the week of August 21 to 27, 2016, as determined from the newly revamped WP:5000 report, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 SummerSlam 2016N/A 1,102,249 WWE's latest pay-per-view pantomime was held on August 21, 2016 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York with the headline bout "won" by Brock Lesnar (pictured) 2 2016 Summer Olympics 1,019,002 Numbers are down by half, but the article is still holding at #2. The closing ceremony was held on August 21, the first day recorded by this list, so interest in the Olympics clearly has faded quickly. It will be interesting to see what will happen when the Paralympics get underway. 3 Stranger Things (TV series)933,503 This E.T., The Goonies and Explorers, though aimed mostly at adults. It has been a smash hit for Netflix, evidenced by its continuing appearance on this chart – six straight weeks. The Internet has seized on even the most mundane facets of the show, such as turning minor character "Barb" into a celebrity. Numbers have not shifted particularly since last week, but with the overall low view count it has let it rise four slots.4 Suicide Squad (film) 776,092 DC Cinematic Universe, which was released on August 5 to generally negative reviews. Nonetheless, it grossed $267M worldwide in its opening weekend.5 UFC 202 N/A 759,740 The latest UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor (pictured) and Nate Diaz, who had defeated McGregor at UFC 196. McGregor won this bout by majority decision.6 Killing of Harambe735,203 What began as a heartfelt reaction to what some felt was the unnecessary killing of a trollingand racist abuse, along with the standard targeted misogyny. What the troll army hopes to accomplish is never clear, but whatever it is it doesn't involve helping gorillas.7 Blonde (Frank Ocean album) 722,611 The long-delayed album from R&B artist Frank Ocean was released exclusively on Apple Musicon August 20 to near-universal acclaim.8 Tic Tac 711,441 As learned on a Reddit thread this week, Tic Tacs are almost pure sugar, but small enough to be considered sugar-free per serving. Interestingly, the two other Reddit threads linked to this article also noticed the same thing. 9 Frank Ocean 697,461 See #7 10 Deaths in 2016617,084 The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day to day basis. It was consistently higher in the first half of 2016 owing to a string of highly notable deaths, but things seem to be calming down a bit.
See also
Also in this Signpost edition, milowent delves into the traffic generated by the Summer Olympics.
Discuss this story
Influence of Reddit on Wikipedia pageviews
Regarding "Reddit, which bills itself as 'the front page of the Internet' because Wikipedia doesn't, has been a major factor in driving traffic here":
That's probably true if "here" means the Top 25 pages, and in any case there is no doubt that the traffic of an individual page linked from a popular Reddit can spike considerably. (By the way, there is an academic paper about this, which we haven't yet covered in the "recent research" section - if anyone is interested in writing a review, let me know; otherwise I might possibly do it myself in our next issue a month from now.)
However, before we get too excited (or worried) about Reddit's "role in aiding Wikipedia", let's not forget that the top 25 articles receive only a tiny, tiny sliver of Wikipedia's pageviews overall, where the ratio of Reddit referrals is so small that it was not even called out separately in the above chart (from this 2015 research). Of course I absolutely agree that it's worth thinking about how to better draw people's attention to the information on Wikipedia (there has already been quite a bit of work on this by editors, the Foundation and other Wikimedia organizations, but there may be many more opportunities that we have not made use of fully yet).
Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 03:03, 7 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Can we talk about how the Signpost allowed a biased and factually-incorrect rant be published for all the world to see? Also, wouldn't Wikipedia trying to push popular articles force the site to cater to clicks and go down the road of clickbait that has befallen many other websites? 24.113.234.93 (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]