Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-09-29/Traffic report

From Gene Wilder to JonBenét: Four weeks of traffic

Your Top 10 most-viewed Wikipedia articles for the weeks of August 28 – September 3, September 4–10, September 11–17, and September 18-24, 2016.

For the full top-25 lists (and archives back to January 2013), see

Lull: The end of the Olympics has brought a bit of a lull this week. Actor

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of August 28 to September 3, 2016, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the newly revamped WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Gene Wilder		3,500,029		The American comedian, born Jerome Silberman (a fact I just learned), very popular in a number of 1970s and 1980s films, died at home in Connecticut on August 29. He had been out of the spotlight for a number of years and died of complications from Alzheimer's disease, a condition he had kept private.
2	Colin Kaepernick		1,294,476		This American football player is getting a lot of attention for choosing to sit during the national anthem, as a protest against the treatment of people of color, see Colin_Kaepernick#National_anthem_protest . There's a lot of strong opinions going around America about this, so I'll leave mine out for once.
3	Stranger Things (TV series)		999,668		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 – seven straight weeks. Netflix recently ordered a second season.
4	Juan Gabriel		925,762		This Mexican singer and songwriter died of a heart attack at his home in California on August 28. He was clearly very popular in the Spanish-speaking world, as the Spanish version of his article got well over two million hits in the same timeframe.
5	Queen Victoria		848,142		Not a Google Doodle or a significant anniversary, but the debut of the British television show Victoria.
6	Killing of Harambe		664,596		What began as a heartfelt reaction to what some felt was the unnecessary killing of a trolling and 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	Deaths in 2016		663,187		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 with a string of highly notable deaths.
8	Gilda Radner		625,108		The Saturday Night Live original cast member, film actress, and wife of #1 died in 1989 from ovarian cancer.
9	Rihanna		605,079		The singer was featured at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.
10	Pablo Escobar		601,802		Narcos is back.

Plata y mas plata: Wikipedia's viewers seem determined to tune the real world out this week, with pop culture in overwhelming dominance once again. And leading the charge is, of course,

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of September 4 to 10, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the newly revamped WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Pablo Escobar		2,309,885		Narcos is back. And apparently people weren't sufficiently informed about its subject last year, because numbers are up fourfold on last week and he's reclaimed his throne at the top of this chart. A suspiciously high 75% mobile count, but there's no reason for it not to be here.
2	Mother Teresa		1,155,944		The canonised this week as Saint Teresa of Calcutta before a crowd of thousands.
3	Ann Coulter		987,975		It must have looked good on paper. Have not-quite-has-been actor celebrity roast and get professional aggressor Ann Coulter to lead the attack. Unfortunately, after years of bilious vitriol spewed through various media at basically everyone who wasn't her, it seems Ann had reached some kind of critical mass, because the tide of battle turned, and everyone decided to roast her instead.
4	Stranger Things (TV series)		846,657		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 – eight straight weeks. Netflix recently ordered a second season.
5	Narcos		752,660		The second season of the TV series about the rise of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (see #1) premiered in its entirety on Netflix on September 2.
6	Harley-Davidson		675,195		The standard toy for middle-aged, middle class white guys to enact their rebellious and countercultural fantasies got a boost this week thanks to Harley and the Davidsons, a three-part drama that aired to middling reviews but stellar ratings, giving the Discovery Channel their best week in years.
7	Deaths in 2016		647,054		The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day to day basis. It is consistently higher in the first half of 2016 with a string of highly notable deaths, but things seem to be calming down a bit.
8	2016 Summer Paralympics		644,210		The Olympics's less heralded encore got underway this week in Rio de Janeiro. We in the UK are good at Olympic events because we spend lottery money on them, but in recent years we've given special notice to the Paralympics, mainly because we did them so well last time.
9	Rob Lowe		615,920		The former celebrity roast on Comedy Central this week, but the format eventually collapsed when the team turned on Ann Coulter (see #3).
10	Killing of Harambe		554,465		What began as a heartfelt reaction to what some felt was the unnecessary killing of a trolling and 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.

Anniversaries: The anniversaries of historic events are frequent visitors to this Report, but instead of being led by the 15th anniversary of the

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of September 11 to 17, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the newly revamped WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Corrupted Blood incident		1,636,405		Like SummerSlam 2016 hit #1 three weeks ago), gaming events simply don't. Yet, the 11th anniversary of this "virtual plague" in World of Warcraft drew a great deal of attention on September 13–14 (and 1.4M views on Sept 13, the actual anniversary). In this event, a game update included a new character that could inflict a "corrupted blood" disease that damaged characters over time. It could spread to nearby characters, but was not intended to spread out of the area where it was introduced. A programming error allowed the disease to spread, and it caused death and mass mayhem for a week. A primary driver of traffic was a Reddit thread on the /r/gaming subreddit. Normally only Reddit threads from the todayilearned subreddit can direct enough traffic to this chart, but the gaming thread already has over 5700 upvotes. Of course, the fact that this event got more views than the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks (#4) does not mean the this virtual plague got more worldwide attention. Instead it is just another example of how Wikipedia article popularity is only a proxy for measuring cultural attention.
2	Pablo Escobar		1,494,049		Down from 2.3 million views last view, but Narcos is back on your television screens for another week. Mobile views are on the high side again (73%) but nothing suggests these views are not legitimate.
3	Alexis Arquette		1,320,202		Arquette, part of the Arquette family of actors, and known for transitioning her gender to female, died on September 11 at age 47 of undisclosed causes.
4	September 11 attacks		1,155,678		The fifteenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in world history fell this week. It fell on the first day of the week, so that may be why it is only #4 for the week this year, as compared to #2 the last two years.
5	Roanoke Colony		870,775		The sixth season of American Horror Story, dubbed American Horror Story: Roanoke debuted on September 14. It invokes the story of England's failed attempt to establish a colony in America in the 1580s, where by 1590 all inhabitants had disappeared and could not be located. The only clue left behind by the "lost colony" was the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post.
6	Yma Sumac		811,712		Google ran a Doodle on what would have been the 94th birthday of the Peruvian soprano. The Doodle only appeared in the United States and certain South American countries (of course including Peru).
7	Donald Trump		688,121		Press coverage in the United States is at 25% Donald Trump every day, it seems. On September 16, Trump promised to give a press conference regarding his current views on Rick roll ".
8	Edward Snowden		671,125		The film Snowden was released in the United States on September 16.
9	UFC 203		667,115		Cleveland, Ohio .
10	Murder of JonBenét Ramsey		649,805		In addition to the O. J. Simpson murder case , the 1990s also brought us this second over-covered over-sensationalized and exploited murder. A new mini-series on American television 'The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey has brought another round of attention as we approach the 20th anniversary of the girl's death.

J'Accuse! pour pauvre petit JonBenét: In the United States, hundreds of children are murdered every year, and, thanks to an average homicide clearance rate of 64%, will likely have their deaths unanswered. But we as a culture, and perhaps as a species, can't handle that. So instead we shine lights on specific examples particularly deviant or prurient in their details, dubbed "media friendly", allowing us to shelter in our moral outrage. And boy did the murder of poor JonBenét Ramsey give us the chance to do that. JonBenét was a product of that strangely American industry, child beauty pageants, which, with their overly made up contestants made to look like living Barbie dolls, gave her murder a slightly paedophilic cast despite having no proven connection to her murder. And with the media having anointed her as their icon of shattered innocence du jour, it is unsurprising that, with the approaching 20th anniversary of her death, the media have again chosen to anoint themselves the sole arbiters of truth and justice in her murder. Several television specials accounting the details of her death or offering new "evidence" have been shown or are in development, but the clear driver of views for this list is The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, a CBS "documentary" that aired on Monday and Tuesday this week. Unlike the more cautious (rational) approaches taken by other networks, CBS decided to flat out name their chosen suspect, JonBenét's then nine-year-old brother, Burke. Needless to say, they're now getting threatened with defamation suits, and in the ensuing lahar of speculation, people turned to Wikipedia for clarity. He're hoping we provided it.

Speaking of unfounded accusations, rumours are again flying around the divorce of

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of September 18 to 24, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Murder of JonBenét Ramsey		1,155,334		In the lead up to its 20th anniversary, the puzzling murder of this six-year-old beauty queen has become a topic of discussion thanks largely to the suggestions (as opposed to outright accusations, mind you) levelled by the CBS documentary The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey.
2	Angelina Jolie		1,140,991		As I have said many times in the past, I care not a jot for the private lives of celebrities. Divorces are never pleasant, least of all for the children, of which she has many, so I hope that, once the walls of tabloid illusion are blown away in the wind, she'll be able to provide them with a stable environment in which to grow up.
3	Pablo Escobar		1,091,369		Narcos is back on your television screens, meaning Don Pablo is back on the list for another week.
4	Marion Cotillard		884,417		You know who else cares not a jot about the private lives of celebrities? Marion Cotillard, who filmed the spy thriller moon landing hoax and 9/11 conspiracy theories .
5	Brad Pitt		851,307		Ever since starting this list I've had that abominable song by Shania Twain rolling through my head: "OK, so you're Brad Pitt! That don't impress me much!" It seems those words were a curse. A very, very, very, long-delayed curse, but a curse nonetheless. Not that Brad Pitt is likely to be lonely long.
6	Deaths in 2016		625,921		The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day to day basis. It is consistently higher in the first half of 2016 with a string of highly notable deaths, but things seem to be calming down a bit.
7	Pink (2016 film)		593,314		This Bollywood drama, starring Amitabh Bachchan (pictured), about three girls falsely accused of prostitution and attempted murder by the boys who sexually assaulted them, grossed ₹210.5 million ($3.2 million) in its opening weekend. Despite its heavy subject matter, being Bollywood, it still has musical numbers.
8	Stranger Things (TV series)		589,801		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 -- ten straight weeks. Netflix recently ordered a second season.
9	Richard Garfield		570,257		The creator of the first ever James Garfield, as learned in a Reddit thread this week.
10	Jennifer Aniston		542,402		Despite having nothing whatsoever to do with her ex-husband's current breakup, the tabloids have latched her onto his every relational flutter for so many years that she's now back in the storm by sheer association.