Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/October 7 to 13, 2018

Prepared with commentary by Pythoncoder

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This week, readers continued to be interested in the event that turned violent... err... more violent (#1, #3, #5, #15, #19). Further down the list is a different kind of fight — this one over the US Supreme Court (#7, #23, #25). Wikipedia readers also went to the movies a lot this week, with entries related to new releases Venom, A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, and 22 July from Netflix (#2, #4, #12, #13, #14, #20, #22). Rounding out the list is the latest Trump administration departure (#6), a royal wedding (#8), another Banksy prank (#9), American athletes (#11, #17), Hurricane Michael (#16), and #MeToo (#21). This leaves 3 spots this week related to deaths (#10, #24, and #18, unless you're the Saudi government).

For the week of October 6 to 13, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	About
1	Khabib Nurmagomedov		3,083,061		Nurmagomedov beat Conor McGregor in UFC 229 to become the new UFC lightweight champion. UFC is a mixed martial arts competition, which basically means that you're trying to beat up your opponent by any means possible. Oh, and then this guy did this. No thanks.
2	Venom (2018 film)		1,521,579		There's been a lot of buzz around this film, which despite being critically panned, has proven to be a hit with audiences. It grossed $35 million in the US and Canada last weekend, giving it the number 1 spot once again and a total domestic haul of $142 million. It just goes to show that moviegoers really, really, really like superheroes. The film, directed by Ruben Fleischer, tells the story of Spider-Man antihero Venom, played by Tom Hardy (whose acting is considered one of the highlights of the film). The film was made by Sony Pictures, and despite it being about a Marvel character, Marvel does not consider it to be in the official Marvel Cinematic Universe.
3	Conor McGregor		1,341,613		After a brief stint in boxing, this was supposed to be McGregor's return to mixed martial arts, the combat sport which brought him his fame. And just like the fight linked above (which ended in a technical knockout), it probably didn't end the way McGregor hoped. Of course, he probably made a lot of money along the way, so that helps. Can't say I watched, but there you go.
4	A Star Is Born (2018 film)		1,326,315		#2 for this weekend's US/Canada box office is the fourth remake, considered to be a favorite for awards season. With Hollywood's obsession with remakes and sequels, it's surprising it took this long for a remake to come out.
5	UFC 229		1,056,495		Pictured at left is the Las Vegas arena where the fight took place (see #1).
6	Nikki Haley		902,500		This week, Haley became the latest high-profile departure from the Trump White House, which has had an astonishingly high turnover rate. Haley, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, will leave at the end of the year. Comments by the POTUS suggest that Jim Mattis and Jeff Sessions may be on the outs as well. Sad!
7	Brett Kavanaugh		831,313		Ugh. Don't remind me that this guy is on the Supreme Court. What a sad, sad day for America. Please, never mention this name to me ever again, unless it's part of an impeachment effort.
8	Princess Eugenie		811,346[1]		There was another royal wedding last week. With this one happening so close to the last one, the page views were lower; it probably didn't help that Markle and Prince Harry sort of stole their thunder with an announcement of their own.[2]
9	Banksy		727,223		Banksy made headlines again this week, when a copy of his painting Girl with Balloon shredded itself after being sold at auction for £1,042,000 ($1.373 million USD). (Or did it?) Of course, this just increased its value. The painting has now been renamed Love is in the Bin.
10	Deaths in 2018		703,425		"All our times have come Here, but now they're gone..." I gotta have more cowbell!
11	Drew Brees		689,551		Well, we're now a few weeks into football (not soccer) season, and on October 8 vs Washington, Brees broke Peyton Manning's record for most all-time career passing yards.
12	Lady Gaga		656,354		Gaga and Cooper are costarring in A Star Is Born (see above).
13	Bradley Cooper		597,741
14	2011 Norway attacks		558,162		The subject of the film 22 July, released by Netflix on October 10.
15	Dagestan		499,765		The area of Russia that Khabib Nurmagomedov (#1) is from.
16	Hurricane Michael		491,317		Another hurricane devastated the Southeastern US this week, in what has been a particularly nasty hurricane season, like last year. (Hmm, I wonder why?) The hurricane season is likely to exhaust the US government's budget for paper towels.
17	Roberto Clemente		453,670		A Google Doodle for National Hispanic Heritage Month honoring the baseball star got Googlers interested in his Wikipedia page.
18	Jamal Khashoggi		440,818		Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's monarchy, disappeared on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in İstanbul, Turkey and is now believed by many to be dead. While the Turkish government is accusing the Saudi government of assassinating him, the Saudi government claims he in fact left the consulate alive (a claim not backed up by security camera evidence). The suspected assassination has drawn condemnation from around the world, but not in the White House, where a certain occupant has accused "rogue killers" of the murder. Of course, this is the same person who said that "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds" who may or may not live in New Jersey hacked the 2016 US presidential election, so take it with a grain mountain of salt.
19	Tony Ferguson		439,910		Part of the undercard at UFC 229, where he defeated Anthony Pettis.
20	Freddie Mercury		431,475		The lead singer of Queen is back on the report because of the recent film Bohemian Rhapsody, which comes out in about a week in my home country. Such a great song, and such a great band.
21	Me Too movement		428,543		Though it's probably over in the US now (boo), it's been growing and receiving media attention in India, with some key differences from its US incarnation.
22	A Star Is Born (1976 film)		416,490		With the release of a new remake of this film, readers also flocked to its most recent (if 1976 can be called recent) predecessor. It starred Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in the leading roles.
23	Ruth Bader Ginsburg		404,862		The unofficial face of SCOTUS' liberal wing, The Notorious RBG has gotten a lot of media coverage due to the documentary about her as well as her support of the Me Too movement. It's probably worth noting that she was confirmed 96–3 by the Senate. 96–3. That was only 25 years ago.
24	Scott Wilson (actor)		403,473		Wilson died on October 6 (too early for his death to impact last week's report). His notable roles include In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, The Great Gatsby, Dead Man Walking, Pearl Harbor, Junebug, and The Ninth Configuration, where he won a Golden Globe.
25	List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States		399,272		Brett Kavanaugh is now the newest entry on this list that spans 219 years. Would the Founding Fathers have expected the level of partisanship surrounding what some hoped would be the least dangerous of the three branches of the US government?

 

• This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.