200 miles in 200 years

Summary: The top 10 encapsulates the history of human aviation; at #1, a Google Doodle celebrating the 216th anniversary of the first parachute jump; at #10, the enduringly popular scifi film Gravity, a paean to human spaceflight. It's odd to think it's taken us 200 years to travel about that many miles up.

For the full top 25 report, including analysis and exclusions, see: WP:TOP25.

For the week of October 20 - 26, 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	Parachute		892,746		An interactive Google Doodle on the 216th anniversary of the first parachute jump led to interest both in the item itself and in its first user, André-Jacques Garnerin.
2	Halloween		613,331		'Tis the night before Hallows, and all through the house, not a creature is stirring... that you can see.
3	Facebook		543,309		A perennially popular article
4	World War II		391,047		Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010 to 2012, in fact, see Table 2 here.)
5	Deaths in 2013	List	359,473		The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article.
6	Breaking Bad		347,729		Despite ending for good two weeks ago, this 5-year televisual exploration of one man's descent into evil continues to drum up interest.
7	United States		346,748		A rarity in the top 10, but the 3rd most popular Wikipedia article from 2010 to 2012, and a perpetual bubble-under-er. Not really surprising that the country with by far the most English speakers would be the most popular on the English Wikipedia.
8	List of Bollywood films of 2013	List	341,165		An established staple of the top 10.
9	André-Jacques Garnerin		331,768		The man who conducted the first ever parachute jump (in a basket!) in 1797 got some internet attention thanks to a Google Doodle (see #1 above).
10	Gravity (film)		324,136		Alfonso Cuarón's spaceborne action/art film is now the critical/commercial blockbuster of the year, combining a nearly $370 million, 24-day worldwide box office take with a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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• Is there a good reason why The Signpost can't publish the Top 25 instead of the Top 10? With so many articles like Deaths in 2013, Facebook, Google, WWII, Bollywood Films, etc. always in the Top 10, it's actually more interesting to me to see #11-25 because that's where the more unusually popular articles reside. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:57, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I second that. 25 is not too long a list and having the little blurbs to the right makes it very fun and readable. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 21:16, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The "perennials" don't even need their own blurb, just a spot on the list. I recognize that The Signpost staff has only so much time, but a longer list with 10 interesting blurbs would be a lot more entertaining. Why so many people look at the article about Facebook is beyond me; I would just as soon not hear about it ever again. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Some have theorized, I believe, that a lot of the hits come from people trying to go facebook.com, and typing the name into the wrong bar (or forgetting that they have their search engine set to Wikipedia instead of Google). I'm sure there's also a lot of bot-generated traffic... There are spiders out there scanning anything related to Facebook for any SEO advantages they can uncover. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • We could eliminate many of the perennials, I'm sure, if we could factor in bounce rate, but Wikipedia analytics doesn't want to release the data for privacy reasons. Serendi^podous 07:41, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, I wouldn't want any perennials omitted but then I like even the bewilderingly popular articles to be included as well (like XXX). The perennials don't appear every week so even if an article appears 20 out of 52 weeks, it's still interesting to see when it is high on the chart, to see if it ties into any event. I was just proposing that since a Top 25 is already being compiled by Serendi^podous, we could substitute it for the Top 10. No extra work necessary! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 12:08, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • They wouldn't be omitted; if the bounce rate were factored in we could remove those views that lasted for a second or so and so were obviously mistakes, which might take several of the perennials out of the running. As for extra work, that would still be necessary, because I have to be careful with my comments on the Signpost, or people start criticising my journalistic integrity. Serendi^podous 13:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Google are rolling out more prominent banner ads when someone seems to be searching for an official website. [1] I wonder if this will result in some of the perennial company articles dropping off. the wub "?!" 13:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]