Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-12-16/Traffic report

A feast of Spam

By now, I hope most of our viewers understand that this list is not a perfect reflection of raw data. Wikipedia is subject to spamming, botnets and even legitimate calibration checks that riddle the list with non-human views. Ever since this list began, we've had to use our own judgement and what evidence we had to determine which cases are real and which are not, and in the past, such decisions could be agonizing. Since the inclusion of mobile views, however, what used to be a torturous experience has become fairly routine. No more checking viewing patterns; no more furious data mining of Google hits; no more frantic attempts to wrangle Reddit's lousy search engine. Just check the mobile percentage, and if it's too low or too high, drop it. But this week, it seems the Internet has decided it wants to screw with us in a number of ways. Not only was this one of the most spammed lists ever, with 17 removals, but our #1, Donald Trump, was tenth on the raw list. Even more frustratingly, several articles, while suspicious, were just within our criteria for inclusion, leading to a return to the familiar spasms of self-doubt.

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of December 6 to 12, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Donald Trump		914,072		The Donald has not graced this list with his august orangutannedness since September, but if there's one thing we've learned about him in the last few months, it's that he will find his way back into the spotlight no matter what. And "What?" indeed, for this week his comments crossed so many lines that scandalized media pundits have actually dusted off that hoary descriptor "fascist" in response, just to see if it fits. And whether it does or not, it says something about Trump's campaign that numerous mainstream news articles have devoted themselves to delicately parsing this onetime hate buzzword of the left to gauge its appropriateness for use in a 21st century election. None of this, it must be said, has hurt Donald in the polls, which now show him neck and neck with every one of his competitors combined.
2	Star Wars: The Force Awakens		795,288		The final build-up has begun. The much anticipated film rolls out in parts of Europe on December 16, the U.K. on December 17, and North America on December 18.
3	Frank Sinatra		727,017		"Old Blue Eyes"'s 100th birthday was celebrated around the world on December 12, which shows just how broadly his appeal cut across generations, despite him also being very much of his time- with his crystalline voice, impeccable dress sense and icy persona, he presented the perfect embodiment of the era of James Bond and Mad Men.
4	Star Wars		693,512		See #2
5	Krampus		638,373		As Yuletide falls in the German-speaking regions of the Alps, children are told not only of jolly Saint Nick with his sack of toys; they are also told of Krampus, whose sack is empty, waiting to be filled with naughty children who will then be carried to his lair. He isn't the only "anti-Santa" out there; the Dutch have Zwarte Piet, and the Haitians have Tonton Macoute, but Krampus's demonic appearance caught the eye of America last year, where he became a leering antidote to the oversaturation of manufactured Christmas cheer, and this year, it seems he's back, no doubt aided by a popular movie, which has so far nearly doubled its $15 million budget at the box office.
6	Attack on Pearl Harbor		627,670		Numbers have nearly doubled since FDR's "day that will live in infamy" appeared on last year's anniversary, probably aided by this year being the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
7	Dolly Parton		601,836		The beloved country music singer's TV biopic, Coat of Many Colors, was seen by 12.8 million viewers when it aired on the US network NBC on December 10.
8	Deaths in 2015		601,665		The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 475 and 575 thousand on average, apparently heedless of who actually died.
9	Scott Weiland		599,321		The former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots was found dead on his tour bus in Minnesota on December 3, likely the result of a drug overdose. Weiland was an unabashed rock star-type who came out of a 1990s grunge-era that was very ambivalent about 70s rock glamour. Sadly, Weiland's long history of drug use made his death not terribly shocking to many.
10	Jessica Jones		571,640		After a second 50% drop in two weeks, it seems Marvel Studios' latest Netflix offering is emulating its predecessor, Daredevil, in rapidly tumbling from the top of this list to relegation. This is likely due to Netflix's releasing the entire series in one go, which allows fans to binge-watch it in mere hours, leading to a burst of feverish discussion followed by a rapid decline in interest.