The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 7 to 13, 2016)

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Super Bowling: The Super Bowl (#20) returns for its annual domination of this chart with Super Bowl 50 (#8) having been played on February 7, placing thirteen articles in our top 25, only slightly off last year's showing of fifteen articles. Aside from American football, the new film Deadpool takes two slots in the top 10, as did two Reddit "Today I Learned" threads. The American domination of the chart this week also saw Donald Trump high again at #4 after easily winning the Republican New Hampshire primary, and Bernie Sanders at #9 for winning the Democratic side of that contest.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of February 7 to 13, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Peyton Manning	2,454,310	In what may have been his final hurrah after a long career, the American football quarterback led the Denver Broncos (#25) to a solid victory over Cam Newton (#7) and the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 (#8) on February 7.
2	Deadpool (film)	1,939,593	The Marvel Comics antihero film starring Ryan Reynolds (pictured) was released on February 12 to a stellar reception. Regarded as a risk by its makers 20th Century Fox, the film has earned a staggering $282 million worldwide in just four days. Reviews are surprisingly strong as well, with the film averaging 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.
3	Omayra Sánchez	1,871,179	As Reddit learned this week, a photo of this young girl, taken before she died in a volcanic eruption in Colombia (see Armero tragedy), was the World Press Photo of the Year for 1985.
4	Donald Trump	1,504,756	Trump won the Republican New Hampshire primary for U.S. President on February 9. He roundly clobbered his opponents with over 35% of the vote. His promises of winning so well we could not not believe it have become reality, and as improbable as it once seemed, the prospect of Trump winning the party's nomination is now being taken very seriously.
5	Deadpool	1,452,087	The character on which #2 is based.
6	Christopher Paul Neil	1,445,649	Reddit learned this week that Neil is a notorious pedophile known as "Mr. Swirl" or "Swirl Face" who was tracked down and arrested in 2007 after police were able to digitally "unswirl" photos of his face available online.
7	Cam Newton	1,411,026	Cam Newton, the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, lost in Super Bowl 50 (#8) to the Denver Broncos (#25), primarily because the Bronco's defense was able to shut down Newton unlike any other team had this season.
8	Super Bowl 50	1,283,341	Up from #17 and 636,927 views last week, it was played on February 7 at the Levi's Stadium outside San Francisco (pictured). Last year's Super Bowl XLIX placed fourth on this report with about 110,000 more views than this year. Personally I blame the drop on the failure to use Roman numerals this year.
9	Bernie Sanders	1,272,272	The lovable democratic socialist easily won the Democratic Party New Hampshire primary over Hillary Clinton. While even some in his own party view his plans as quixotic at best and confrontational at worst, his idealism has proven catnip to disenchanted young voters.
10	List of Super Bowl champions	999,486	This list invariably pops up once a year, as Americans first scramble for facts to determine which team will win, then rush back to see if their dream/nightmare came true.
11	Black Panther Party	906,111	The American Super Bowl (#20) always swamps this report once a year, but this article is one few would have guessed to be a beneficiary. But Beyoncé's (#21) contribution to the Super Bowl 50 halftime show had a political tone which surprised an audience expecting only vacuous splendor.
12	O. J. Simpson	897,243	The debut on February of American Crime Story's first season, subtitled The People v. O. J. Simpson, tells the sordid story the O. J. Simpson murder case, a seminal low-light of the 1990s.
13	Chinese New Year	858,087	The first day of the Year of the Fire Monkey fell on Monday, February 8.
14	Valentine's Day	855,883	Typically (see 2013 and 2014 and 2015), Valentine's Day makes it annual appearance at the top of the chart. Since the 14th falls on first day of next week's report, it may not this time, as it won't have the benefit of the pre-holiday views in its totals.
15	Eli Manning	830,218	The brother of #1, also an American football quarterback. Only here because enough people looking up Peyton wondered what was up with Eli.
16	Von Miller	789,865	A player on the Denver Broncos, Miller won the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award this year.
17	Dmitri Mendeleev	734,831	Yet another player on the Denver Broncos, this burly sweaty man also pushed himself into other ... oh wait a second, no no no. This Russian chemist and inventor, pioneer of the periodic table of elements, was honored by a Google Doodle on his 182nd birthday. He also did have between 11 and 17 siblings, enough to field an American football team, however. By the way, if you like Google Doodle articles and want to help improve them please see the recently formed Google Doodle task force.
18	Pat Bowlen	789,865	The majority owner of the Denver Broncos.
19	List of Super Bowl halftime shows	648,909	Many people only watch the Super Bowl (or half-watch it) to catch the halftime show.
20	Super Bowl	648,571	That American football game that occurred, as you may have heard.
21	Beyoncé	626,882	Beyoncé performed as part of #19 during #8, though #24 was the actual lead halftime performer.
22	Ash Wednesday	599,863	There was a time, not so long ago really, (say a century or two) when this moveable feast marking the first day of Lent would have been the main topic of discussion among the public. Times have changed. Most people don't even fast for Lent any more, let alone show their devotion by marking their foreheads with ash. It was also #5 last year, when it didn't overlap as much with the Super Bowl.
23	Deaths in 2016	576,445	The annual list of deaths has always been a fairly consistent visitor to this list, averaging about 500,000 views a week. Since the death of David Bowie, this article's views have jumped on average, but may slowly be returning to the mean.
24	Coldplay	575,348	The lead performer at #19.
25	Denver Broncos	561,599	The 13th entry of this chart related to the Super Bowl.

Just missing the Top 25: Gravitational wave (#26) due to this; Bruno Mars (#27), who also played at #19; Carolina Panthers (#28) who lost to #25; Robert Kardashian (#29), an attorney who represented #12; and The Life of Pablo (#30), the new album of Kanye West. Zika virus, which was #3 last week, falls to #31.

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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% or less) or almost all mobile views (~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.