Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-17/Traffic report

Traffic report

A December Lull

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A fairly anemic week saw the least-viewed number 1 since September, which, mind you, is before mobile views were added. 11 of this week's entries were holdovers from previous weeks, and those that weren't were standard Top 25 fare; Reddit threads, Google Doodles, premièring media, and celebrity gossip.

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

For the week of December 7 to 13, 2014, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Death of Eric Garner	686,408	On December 3, a grand jury decided not to indict New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo in connection with the death of Eric Garner, who died in Tompkinsville, Staten Island on July 19 after being put in a chokehold. A video of the event went viral shortly after that event. The grand jury's decision has caused public outcry, and the U.S. Justice Department has announced a separate civil rights investigation into Garner's death. Between this and the shooting of Michael Brown, police procedure in the United States (especially black citizens) has become a subject of widespread discussion. Although numbers are down steeply from last week, the topic remains the highest-rated on Wikipedia.
2	Dan Bilzerian	596,199	It is interesting to note that those who most crave fame often inadvertently attain it for the wrong reasons. This hard-living, poker playing trust-fund millionaire and Instagram exhibitionist appeared in the Top 25 earlier this year for throwing a porn star off his roof; this week he's back in the public eye for kicking a model in the face and being arrested on felony bomb-making charges. Sometimes I wonder if part of our obsession with celebrities is that we can view them from a distance.
3	Facebook	584,568	The perennially popular article holds the no 3 slot despite a ~150,000 drop in views.
4	Guardians of the Galaxy (film)	555,100	This critically and popularly adored movie proved its staying power when its arrival on Blu-ray was greeted with a shot to the top of this list. This may be a first; box office debuts frequently enter the list, but video? Never seen that before.
5	Sons of Anarchy	546,887	The final season of the American television drama about an outlaw motorcycle club starring Katie Sagal (pictured) ended on December 9.
6	Deaths in 2014	497,199	The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died.
7	Annie Jump Cannon	493,435	Her name sounds vaguely like the title of a folk song, but Annie Jump Cannon was real, was brilliant, and one of the most influential people in modern astronomy. Together with Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with establishing the still-in-use Harvard Classification Scheme for stars (better known, perhaps, by its mnemonic, "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!"). That despite having struggled with lifelong deafness, as many who followed on from a Google Doodle for her 151st birthday found out this week.
8	Stephen Hawking	473,260	The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon makes his sixth straight appearance in the Top 25 this week, thanks in large part to his biopic, The Theory of Everything, which opened in the United States on November 7.
9	Ariana Grande	447,747	Wikipedia just can't get enough of this former Nickelodeon star. Views spiked on December 10, after the broadcast of her appearance at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, during which she apparently made an off-colour joke to Ed Sheeran about the big, inflatable black balls that formed part of the production. Ahem.
10	The Flash (2014 TV series)	439,160	This spinoff from the hit series Arrow marks DC Comics' second attempt to create a TV universe, after the late and much lamented DC Animated Universe.