The Signpost

Traffic report

The American Heartland

The American heartland appears to dominate the Report this week, with Chris Kyle leading the Report for another week, the film about his life at #3, and our #2 slot filled by the Royal Rumble wrestling event. A lot of other American topics including American football fill the list and the greater Top 25, this week, though India contributed the new film Baby at #13 and its annual Republic Day at #16 in the Top 25.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.

For the week of January 25 to 31, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Chris Kyle B-class 2,653,157
Down 50% from an astounding 5.3 million views last week, but still far and away enough to top the Report for another week. I find it rather surprising that Kyle's article and the American Sniper article have been quite so popular. Like the many occasions where wrestling events I've never heard of make the Top 25, these articles are tapping a segment of the American populace that is somewhat disconnected from the rest of the world and other cultural topics.
2 Royal Rumble (2015) N/A 1,245,749
When I made the wrestling analogy above, I did not even know that #2 was going to be a wrestling event. This WWE pay per view event was held on January 25, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Roman Reigns (#22), who I have never heard of, won the "Royal Rumble" match.
3 American Sniper (film) Start-class 807,758
Consistent with the drop in views in #1, this is down from 1.5 million views last week, but still quite popular.
4 Stephen Hawking B-Class 653,915
The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist, and latter-day science icon makes his 13th straight appearance in the Top 25 this week. Was Albert Einstein this consistently popular in his day?
5 Barack Obama Featured List 653,661
The president of the United States was more popular than usual this week (he had 359,000 views last week, and 200,000 the week before that), with views rising particularly around January 27.
6 Samuel Adams Featured List 609,610
A big jump in views for this American founding father started on January 26, probably due to the Sons of Liberty three-part American miniseries.
7 Auschwitz concentration camp Good Article 595,834
In the news due to the 70th anniversary of its liberation.
8 Marshawn Lynch B-class 560,125
Star American footballer for the Seattle Seahawks, who does not like dealing with media, but popular in the run-up to Super Bowl XLIX held on February 1.
9 Facebook B-class 542,557
A perennially popular article.
10 Harald Bluetooth C-class 536,985
Reddit learned (as did I) that "the symbol for bluetooth is a bind rune made from the pre-viking runes of the tenth century king, Harald Bluetooth's name."

















Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-02-04/Traffic_report