Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-09-06/Traffic report

Traffic report

A fortnight of conflicts

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by igordebraga (August 13 to 19, 2017) and OZOO (August 20 to 26, 2017)

What do we say to Virginia Nazis? Not today! (August 13 to 19, 2017)

Godwin's Law states that any internet discussion that goes on too long will eventually have a Nazi comparison. Well, things have gotten so ugly in America that Godwin himself says there is a valid comparison to be found in the Unite the Right rally, led by white supremacists (#5) and featuring protesters carrying swastika flags and doing the Nazi salute. Understandably, anti-fascism groups (#7) appeared to counterprotest. And it all started because of a threat to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee (#2), showing the Civil War he fought is unfortunately resonant today.

Yet, the top entry on the list has the only place that somehow is worse, the world of Game of Thrones—say what you want about the political turmoil, at least there are no zombies or dragons involved—which also takes two other spots in the top 10. Back to Earth, given the Sun continues to shine in spite of so much barbarism, people were fascinated to see it eclipsed by the Moon during the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 (#6). India is worried about deaths caused by the Blue Whale game (#3), the UK mourned Bruce Forsyth (#9), and the ever-present deaths in 2017 list came in at #10.

For the week of August 13 to 19, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Game of Thrones (season 7)	1,920,254	It took a while, but Game of Thrones finally took the lead—probably helped by a foreign branch of HBO again leaking the upcoming episode. Season 7 ends this Sunday.
2	Robert E. Lee	1,548,067	General Lee has been dead for nearly 150 years, but clearly still causes a huge impact in his home state of Virginia, as the threat to remove his statue in Charlottesville (pictured) led to an incident (#11) that has a deep presence in this list.
3	Blue Whale (game)	1,245,842	India continues to see deaths caused by this "game", to the point they're trying to ban it. Certainly a better alternative to people following a thing that is intended to end in suicide.
4	Game of Thrones	1,085,929	Latest seasons of the show have been labeled by dissers as fanfic, given it is scheduled to end next year, possibly without the last two A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin (pictured) not having been published. But who can blame the showrunners for not waiting? The fifth novel came out in 2012, and Martin has promised to release the sixth "this year" for two years in a row.
5	Identity Evropa	1,028,668	They say everything old is new again, but why the hell do we need the return of segregationism and fascism? This white supremacist group led the Unite the Right rally (#11), and showed how ugly the alt-right (#15) has become.
6	Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017	860,573	The Sun was eclipsed by the Moon all across the contiguous United States, an event that made for an interesting viewing experience (thought not for me, I live in South America and have to wait two more years).
7	Antifa (United States)	834,331	This anti-fascist movement counterprotested the Unite the Right rally (#11), in actions ranging from attacking the alt-right (#15) with sticks to chants of "punch a Nazi in the mouth" - a tactic that has worked since the 1940s with Captain America.
8	List of Game of Thrones episodes	704,226	See #1, #4. Only seven episodes more to go!
9	Bruce Forsyth	696,615	An English artist who warranted a knighthood for his long and accomplished career spanning 75 years, most notably hosting game shows, Sir Bruce Forsyth died at the age of 89.
10	Deaths in 2017	686,990	The most famous death of the week followed by the ever-present tally of those who left us, quite adequate.

Mayweather v. McGregor, Moon v. Sun (August 20 to 26, 2017)

Our list topper, one way or another, is Game of Thrones, the main page for the series replacing the season 7 article, which drops to second (but see the note at the bottom). Comedian Jerry Lewis is at #3 following his death.

Eclipse content tended to dominate the list, with some surprising entries. Obviously the article for this week's eclipse (#4) makes it onto the list, and not really a surprise to see the main solar eclipse article (#8) here, and both the lists on eclipses this century and eclipses visible from the United States (#9 & #10).

Also sweeping the world up in -mania was boxing, with both Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (#5 & #6) making good placings. Controversial Indian guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh (#7) was convicted of rape this week, a conviction that led to riots in which more than thirty people were killed.

For the week of August 20 to 26, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Game of Thrones	1,962,313	In the land of Westeros, the most popular article over on the Dothraki Wikipedia is called Double Entry. It is a fantasy drama about an accountant who never meets weird skeletal ice-monsters and has almost no one trying to kill him to take his power. In the highly-rated season finale, the hero had a nice lunch before a quiet afternoon in watching the football. Over here on the English Wikipedia, it's Game of Thrones again. The page view count here may be exaggerated (there's an unusual bump on the daily viewcounts), but the page would be on the list anyway and the show would have an article in the #1 slot regardless, since #2 is...
2	Game of Thrones (season 7)	1,820,225	It would, of course, be easy, not to mention extremely lazy, to reduce this objectively popular series to "just some nonsense about dragons". But I've got 25 of these to write, so let's crack on with the dragon talk! Who are your favourite dragons? Mine are Gorwen, Y Ddraig Goch and Duncan Bannatyne.
3	Jerry Lewis	1,640,879	Jerry Lewis, the American comedian, actor and singer, died on August 20 at the age of 91. He was known for his slapstick humour in film, television and radio; his partnership with Dean Martin as part of the comedy duo Martin and Lewis and a significant career of solo work. He also served as national chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and hosted the live Labor Day weekend broadcast of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon for 44 years.
4	Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017	1,515,648	On August 21, 2017, The Heroic Moon briefly blocked out the hideous light from the Hated Sun. The phenomenon was visible from the United States, a big country in North America. 14 states experienced totality, with the rest of the country getting at least some partial coverage. Even amongst those who couldn't make it to a viewing could have seen it in this modern world, with NASA reporting over 90 million page views on their eclipse page, breaking the previous record seven times over.
5	Conor McGregor	1,324,844	Conor McGregor, the current UFC Lightweight Champion, made his professional boxing debut with a fight on August 26 against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (#6). Despite some predicting "Notorious" would be knocked out within the first two minutes, McGregor started aggressively, but faded over the course of the fight, which was eventually called in favour of Mayweather in the tenth round by technical knockout.
6	Floyd Mayweather Jr.	1,301,421	Floyd Mayweather Jr., the WBC Supreme Champion, made what will likely be his professional boxing end with a fight on August 26 against Conor McGregor (#5). Mayweather defeated McGregor in the tenth round, moving him on to 50 fights unbeaten. Where he will likely stay, unless someone else offers him $200,000,000 to come out of retirement again.
7	Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh	1,239,905	Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, an Indian guru who has been head of the religious social group Dera Sacha Sauda since 1990, was convicted on 25 August of two counts of rape. Following the verdict, at least thirty-six people were killed and more than three hundred injured in widespread riots throughout Northern India.
8	Solar eclipse	1,195,758	As seen in America this week, and elsewhere throughout history. In 585 BCE an eclipse predicted by Thales of Miletus allegedly launched a peace between the warring Medes and Lydians, while in fifth year of the reign of Chinese king Zhong Kang, two astronomers were executed for their failure to predict an eclipse. So, you know, some good, some bad.
9	List of solar eclipses in the 21st century	1,042,511	Solar eclipse of July 22, 2009 pictured, with a photograph taken from Bangladesh. The next total eclipse will be on July 2, 2019, but I wouldn't expect a significant amount of coverage since the main region of totality will be over the southern Pacific Ocean, where humans are unlikely to live unless science can finally evolve us some gills.
10	List of solar eclipses visible from the United States	1,021,067	To be honest, there is a limit to how much can be written about eclipses, and there's still two more eclipse articles to go. I could take this opportunity to tell you when the next total eclipse visible from the United States will be, but since that's one of the two eclipse articles still to come, I will maintain the tension.

Note:

The article for Game of Thrones has increased by roughly a million viewers from last week, with no equivalent boost for the season article, which looks suspicious. Considering the mobile percentages from the raw list, it can be estimated that last week had 507,454 mobile & 578,474 computer views, with this week having 543,364 mobile & 1,418,948 computer views, indicating a potential issue. However, it is difficult to say how many of those views should be branded "illegitimate", as the article certainly belongs on the list, even if it maybe should be slightly lower. It should be considered that the #2 page is the season article, so the #1 slot has not been "stolen" from something unrelated that deserves it more. If the view counts for Game of Thrones were the same as last week, the article would be down at #8 (from #4), which is, perhaps, an indicator of how many big articles there were this week.

Exclusions

These lists 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 Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

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In this issue

6 September 2017 (all comments)

From the editors

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I'm thoroughly enjoying the whimsical writeups in this page. Good work!-gadfium 04:26, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation please, or something!

"Latest seasons of the show have been labeled by dissers as fanfic, given it is scheduled to end next year, possibly without the last two A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin (pictured) not having been published." Johnbod (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Captain America image is free use

If you want some copyright-free images of punching Hitler, here are two: AnonMoos (talk) 16:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost is looking for new talent.

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