Viral
This was a week when an actual virus, Ebola, competed for attention with several viral social phenomena; most notably the Ice Bucket Challenge, a charitable dare that spread largely on social media, and a spontaneous online debate over the nature of rock music, sparked by Lorde's surprise win at the VMAs. This week also saw the return of that oldest of viral social phenomena, the riot, as tensions exploded over the shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri. That most social media-savvy of all terror groups, the Islamic State, increased its notoriety by posting its execution of James Foley on Twitter. This was also a bumper week for that prime viral knowledge vector, Reddit, with four topics in the top 25.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation for any exclusions.
For the week of August 17 to 23, 2014, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Ice Bucket Challenge 
2,902,018 
Surprisingly, this global viral phenomenon, in which celebrities, YouTubers and everyday members of the public pour icewater over their heads, post their ordeals online and then dare others to do the same in the name of raising awareness for motor neurone disease, was not launched by any particular charity, but seems to have grown on its own. While it certainly has achieved its goal of raising awareness of motor neurone disease (see below) many have criticised it as a frivolous wet T-shirt contest that has had no tangible effect except to waste water at at time when many areas of the planet are in drought. 2 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 
1,856,817 
The purpose of the Ice Bucket Challenge was to draw attention to the disease made famous by Lou Gehrig and Stephen Hawking, and it's hard to argue it didn't work – people flocked to the page to learn more about it, though you could argue that if it had truly succeeded, this page would be first, the Challenge second. 3 Robin Williams
864,859 
The unexpected death by suicide of this iconic comic on August 11 led to one of the highest spikes in views since this project began; this week's numbers may be down by more than 90 percent, but they're still impressive. 4 Ebola virus disease
616,334 
The 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, whose death toll has now passed 1400, continues to draw attention to this horrific disease. 5 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 
607,641 
Numbers are up for this almost absurdly brutal jihadist group, which proudly posts mass executions it carries out on Twitter and has been disowned even by al-Qaeda. The surge is likely due to the fallout from Barack Obama's decision to take US troops into Iraq (despite having campaigned on the promise of troop withdrawal from the country), including the execution of journalist James Foley. 6 Rock music 
536,500 
Disclaimer: with a topic this broad, there is no way to determine a precise reason for its popularity, and its view count is suspiciously even, so if it remains high next week it may be removed. That said, the surge did occur shortly before the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, which have sparked a minor controversy about the precise definition of rock music with the nomination, and subsequent win, for Lorde's video for "Royals", an electronic song better defined as art pop. Even Lorde's fans have been somewhat bewildered by this, as you'd think MTV would have a better grasp on what rock music is. 7 Mona Lisa
494,140 
Arguably the most famous painting in the world, and one of the few that the legendarily distractible Leonardo da Vinci completed himself, the Mona Lisa did, in fact, once possess eyelashes and eyebrows, but they have been worn away over the years by careless cleaning, according to a thread on Reddit this week. 8 SummerSlam (2014) Unassessed 384,478 The WWE's latest pay-per-view pantomime was staged on 17 August. 9 Deaths in 2014 
382,940 
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. 10 Guardians of the Galaxy (film)
380,140 
Marvel Studio's cheerily bonkers space opera crowd pleaser has regained the top spot at the US box office in its fourth weekend and, to the sure delight of many, has overtaken Michael Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction as America's biggest movie of the summer, though it has done less well internationally, where audiences are apparently more trepidatious about this unknown and unashamedly odd property.
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Just a picky copyediting comment:
"one of the few (paintings) that the legendarily distractable Leonardo da Vinci completed in his lifetime," might suggest that da Vinci completed some paintings after his lifetime. I doubt that's what the author intended to say. Also, my spellchecker suggests "distractible". Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:54, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]