The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 11 to 17, 2016)

Prepared with commentary by Milowent.

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Two Leaders and One War: Two articles exceeded two million views this week, and no others even exceeded one million. The death of Canadian actor Alan Thicke (#1) leads the list; a successful actor but perhaps a surprisingly strong showing considering his heyday was in the 1980s and 1990s. And in second place, we have Rogue One, the new Star Wars (#9) franchise film entry, likely to remain with us for a few weeks. In more serious matters, the Battle of Aleppo (2012–16) hit #7, and two related articles (Aleppo at #11 and Syrian Civil War at #20) also made the Top 25.

For the week of December 11 to 17, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Alan Thicke	2,734,867	The Canadian actor best known for his role as the dad on the American sitcom Growing Pains (1985-1992), he died of a heart attack at age 69 on December 13. He was also a songwriter who penned a number of popular TV show themes. Indeed, he had a rather successful life, though it seem a bit surprising that his death was such a solid #1 for the week.
2	Rogue One	2,151,908	This Star Wars (#9) universe movie, but not part of the main series, was released on December 16, 2016. (It first appeared on this chart in April 2016.) Felicity Jones (#21) (pictured) stars in the film, which has already grossed over $320 million. It probably won't dominate this chart as thoroughly as Star Wars: The Force Awakens did a year ago, but it will probably do quite well all the same.
3	Rex Tillerson	917,566	The CEO of ExxonMobil (pictured shaking hands with Vladimir Putin) is Donald Trump's pick to be America's next Secretary of State.
4	Deaths in 2016	780,226	The deaths list has always acted as this list's lodestone; it is so consistent on a day-to-day basis that where it appears is an indication of the weekly traffic levels. And it is quite high at #4 this week. That said, we may have to recalibrate our mathematics, since its numbers have been slowly going up over the last few weeks, and that continued again this week.
5	Westworld (TV series)	662,835	The season finale episode, The Bicameral Mind, aired on December 4. Views are down about 50% from last week, but that's still good enough to be #5 this week.
6	Battle of Dunkirk	643,547	Appearing due to the release of a new trailer for the upcoming July 2017 film Dunkirk (#23). A seven-minute trailer appeared at select IMAX showings of Rogue One (#2).
7	Battle of Aleppo (2012–16)	629,731	As Syrian government forces recently captured most the city of Aleppo (#11), the world is again paying a bit more attention to this terrible conflict. It is an odd irony that this article follows another battle on this list and which only appears due to an upcoming movie about it. Frankly, digesting the reality of war right in front of our eyes is harder than watching movies about a 75 year old battle.
8	Robin Thicke	609,246	The popular singer is the son of #1.
9	Star Wars	588,514	See #2.
10	Elizabeth II	587,004	For yet another week, the longest-reigning British monarch in history places on this list thanks to The Crown, a $100 million melodrama about her early years where she is played by Claire Foy.
11	Aleppo	569,019	See #7.
12	Donald Trump	551,197	Numbers have stabilized a bit this week after a post-election decline. It seems very possible that Trump will join Deaths in 2016 (if he hasn't already) as a constant on the chart.
13	Craig Sager	545,298	The American sports newscaster died on December 15 at age 65 of leukemia, which returned in 2016 after successful treatment in 2014.
14	United States presidential election, 1984	537,706	Reddit thread titled "TIL Ronald Reagan was 3,761 votes shy, in Minnesota, of winning every state in the 1984 Presidential Election."
15	Bruno Mars	537,392	The singer appeared on the popular "Carpool Karaoke" segment of The Late Late Show with James Corden last week (video), which is probably why he is on the chart.
16	John Christie (murderer)	515,674	The English serial killer of the 1940s and 1950s is now portrayed in the BBC drama Rillington Place. And while I am sure this article title is appropriate, I wonder how many biographies we have with "(murderer)" in the title. It stands out a lot more than the mundane John Christie (opera manager), that's for sure.
17	Amundsen's South Pole expedition	512,218	A Google Doodle celebrated the 105th anniversary of the first expedition to reach the South Pole.
18	Rob McElhenney	497,494	Another Reddit TIL thread.
19	UFC 206	483,602	The latest Ultimate Fighting Championship was held on December 10. Cub Swanson (pictured) was among the match winners.
20	Syrian Civil War	465,662	See #7.
21	Felicity Jones	447,648	A star of #2.
22	The Walking Dead (season 7)	426,128
23	Dunkirk (2017 film)	426,128	See #6. Looking over the cast list, you'll find that One Direction member Harry Styles (pictured) will make his acting debut in this film, ensuring that at least some females will go see it.
24	Pentatonix	424,347	Views peaked on December 15, after an American television Christmas show starring this acclaimed a cappella group. Sales of their new Christmas album, A Pentatonix Christmas also have jumped as a result.
25	United States presidential election, 2016	419,297	Still popular for another week as people refresh their screens occasionally to make sure Wikipedia was not vandalized (by Russia?).

Just missing the Top 25: Gloria Loring (#26, 412,908; second wife of Alan Thicke (#1) and mother of Robin Thicke (#8)); Ian Flemming (#27, 392,498; 17.86% mobile views, so probably a Reddit thread); Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (#28, 390,278, due to The Crown); Kurt Gödel (#29, 381,206); Facebook (#30, 363,774)

Exclusions

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.