Traffic report
Syria, celebrities, and association football
Summary: While the Syrian Civil War crept its slow way into the minds of the public, with a new fourth related entry in the top 25, the top 10 remained dominated by celebrity, mainly sports and music. Two megabucks transfers stimulated public interest in football/soccer ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, while Lil Wayne's public apology ahead of his latest album release sent him to the top.
For the full top 25 plus exclusions, see WP:TOP25
For the week of September 1 - 7, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Lil Wayne 
662,661 
After apologising to his fans on Twitter, Lil Wayne has gone from not receiving any BET Award or MTV Video Music Award nominations to coming tops in Wikipedia views. 2 Rosh Hashanah
590,908 
That's the Jewish New Year to the rest of us. Jews the world over ushered in the year 5774 on September 4. 3 Facebook
580,025 
A perennially popular article 4 Mesut Özil 
532,862 
The German footballer was recently transferred to Arsenal FC for $67 million, which, for a presumed 5-year contract works out at roughly $1500 an hour. 5 Breaking Bad
507,227 
The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11. 6 Twerking 
502,811 The new term for girls waggling their bottoms onstage continues to be a point of interest. 7 Syria
468,913 
The next Middle Eastern country in which the United States might become embroiled has continued to be a topic of interest this week. 8 John Wisden
398,834 
The star cricketer and creator of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack got a boost thanks to a Google Doodle on his 187th birthday on September 5. 9 Charlie Hunnam
393,246 
The English actor and Sons of Anarchy star saw his popularity soar after being cast in the title role of the film adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey. 10 Gareth Bale
392,593 
The Welsh footballer was just signed by Real Madrid for a reported 100 million euros ($133 million), an even more astronomical sum than that for the above Mesut Özil.
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Discuss this story
Lil Wayne must have deleted those Tweets because I can't find any that are provocative and there is no mention of them on his WP article. Liz Read! Talk! 13:18, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I really like this feature - it's an interesting view into the interests of the readership at large, and the ratings encourage any self-respecting editor to say "WAIT an article with such a low rating is getting that many views? It needs to be improved." Great concept. Dcoetzee 02:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If twerking makes the list again next week, can we please not refer to it as "girls waggling their bottoms"? Men/boys/women can twerk too. Gobōnobō + c 20:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have doubts whether Facebook is really so popular or whether something is inflating this. Why isn't Google, Youtube or Twitter making an appearance? Something is fishy. This does seem to have some support in search terms popularity ([1]), where Facebook seems more popular than the proverbial sex or porn. It also is much more popular than all the other popular articles of ours, like this weeks' Lil Wayne. I don't grok it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]