Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-10/Traffic report

Dead black men and science-fiction are the stark contrasts which fill the Traffic Report this week. The grand jury decision not to indict after the death of Eric Garner (#1) recently followed a similar decision in the shooting of Michael Brown (#5), and remain top news stories in the United States. A future movie based on the Suicide Squad (#2) comics, the future Star Wars: The Force Awakens (#6), and current Interstellar (#7), not to mention the continuing popularity of the science-but-not-fiction Stephen Hawking (#4) represent the bulk of the Top 10. And in the greater Top 25 we see Terminator Genisys at #18, The Maze Runner at #22, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 at #24, and the non-fictional spacecraft Orion at #25. On the whole, escapism dominates over reality for another week.

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

For the week of 30 November to 6 December 2014, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:


 * {| class="wikitable"

! Rank ! Article ! Class ! Views ! Image ! Notes
 * 1
 * Death of Eric Garner
 * Symbol c class.svg
 * align="right"|1,328,750
 * Tompkinsville.jpg
 * On 3 December, 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 19 July 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 (#1 last week, #5 this week), police procedure in the United States (especially black citizens) has become a subject of widespread discussion.
 * 2
 * Suicide Squad
 * Symbol c class.svg
 * align="right"|727,440
 * Margot_Robbie_(cropped).jpg
 * The cast of the upcoming 2016 film of the same name about this comics franchise was announced this week, including Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie (pictured) as Harley Quinn, Tom Hardy as Rick Flag, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, and Cara Delevingne, who is currently filming Paper Towns, as Enchantress.
 * 3
 * Facebook
 * Symbol b class.svg
 * align="right"|724,670
 * Ad-tech London 2010 (5).JPG
 * A perennially popular article, and a jump from 611,598 views last week puts it at #3 this week, its highest placing since it also hit #3 the week of November 2 to 8. To find a week where Facebook doesn't appear on the Top 25, you have to go all the way back to the week of June 15 to 21, when the World Cup was dominating the chart.
 * 4
 * Stephen Hawking
 * Symbol b class.svg
 * align="right"|	704,737
 * Stephen Hawking.StarChild.jpg
 * The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon got a boost with the release of the biopic, The Theory of Everything, in the United States on 7 November. His article has remained popular since, this being his fifth straight weekly appearance.
 * 5
 * Shooting of Michael Brown
 * Symbol c class.svg
 * align="right"|611,311
 * Protesters with signs in Ferguson.jpg
 * The 24 November decision by the grand jury not to indict the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager from Ferguson, Missouri, led not only to further unrest but to Brown's death becoming the most sought-after topic on Wikipedia last week. This week the article dropped from 2.5 million views to just over 600 thousand.
 * 6
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens
 * Symbol c class.svg
 * align="right"|610,664
 * Star Wars The Force Awakens.jpg
 * After the mess George Lucas made of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, it's fair to say fans are more than a little equivocal about whatever new owners Disney and admitted Star Wars geek J. J. Abrams have planned to restore the series' reputation. Though many feel the film's title itself is far from promising and alternate humorous titles have abounded, hope springs eternal and this article remains popular.
 * 7
 * Interstellar (film)
 * Symbol b class.svg
 * align="right"|606,266
 * Black Hole in the universe.jpg
 * As the above interest in Stephen Hawking shows, movies that win at the box office are seldom the ones that get the most Wikipedia views; rather it is the amount of debate and discussion those movies trigger that seems to be the main driver of Wikipedia interest. Case in point: Interstellar's respectable $147 million domestic box office has paled next to that of Big Hero 6, which opened opposite it, and even The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, which opened two weeks after it. And yet,  the debates and questions it raised, both scientific and over its own quality, have meant that this film's article has remained in the top 10 for weeks.
 * 8
 * Phillip Hughes
 * Symbol c class.svg
 * align="right"|	593,302
 * Phil Hughes cropped.jpg
 * One of the best cricketers in Australia's modern history, at the age of 20, Phillip Hughes scored centuries in both innings at a test match, the youngest player ever to do so. Sadly, he died last week after being hit on the neck by a cricket ball.
 * 9
 * The Walking Dead (TV series)
 * Symbol support vote.svg
 * align="right"| 545,851
 * The Walking Dead 2010 logo.svg
 * The show's fifth season premièred on 12 October, and the series article has remained popular since that time.
 * 10
 * Deaths in 2014
 * Symbol list class.svg
 * align="right"|491,209
 * Qayyum_chudhury.JPG
 * The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. Deaths this week included Bangladeshi painter Qayyum Chowdhury (November 30) (pictured), Greek-American epidemiologist and oncologist Dimitrios Trichopoulos (December 1); British wheelchair basketball player Josie Cichockyj (December 2); Mexican Supreme Court Justice Sergio Armando Valls (December 3); American songwriter Bob Montgomery (December 4); American photographer Arthur Leipzig (December 5); and Ralph H. Baer, often called "the father of videogames" (December 6)
 * }
 * The Walking Dead 2010 logo.svg
 * The show's fifth season premièred on 12 October, and the series article has remained popular since that time.
 * 10
 * Deaths in 2014
 * Symbol list class.svg
 * align="right"|491,209
 * Qayyum_chudhury.JPG
 * The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. Deaths this week included Bangladeshi painter Qayyum Chowdhury (November 30) (pictured), Greek-American epidemiologist and oncologist Dimitrios Trichopoulos (December 1); British wheelchair basketball player Josie Cichockyj (December 2); Mexican Supreme Court Justice Sergio Armando Valls (December 3); American songwriter Bob Montgomery (December 4); American photographer Arthur Leipzig (December 5); and Ralph H. Baer, often called "the father of videogames" (December 6)
 * }
 * }


 * Just missing the Top 25: American Horror Story: Freak Show (#26), Wikipedia (#27), Chespirito (Mexican comedian who died on November 28; #28), boxer Hasim Rahman (#29) and List of Bollywood films of 2014 (#30)


 * Notes from the Top 5000: 80 articles from the raw Top 5000 exceeded over 250,000 views this week, the last being Chernobyl disaster (#80, 250,954 views); 476 articles cracked 100,000 views, ending with Colombian house music DJ Lupe Fuentes (#476, 100,259 views); Recent American Dancing with the Stars winner Alfonso Ribeiro (#1750) was last to top 50,000 as he slides out of the limelight again; and there was a three-way tie for last place (#4998) with Ancient Rome, Mississippi River, and Shirley Bassey each with 27,377 views.  The average article in the Top 5000 this week had 41.7% mobile views.