Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/January 21 to 27, 2018

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (January 21 to 27, 2018)

Prepared with commentary by igordebraga and Serendipodous

← Last week's report | Next week's report →

I'm Going Through Changes: Feel like the report was pretty much the same from week to week? We've got you covered, as only four entries remain from the last report, the ever-present death list and the subjects of the TV shows Wikipedia readers seem to watch. Most of the changes are sports related: three entries in the build-up to Super Bowl LII, the possibility of another gridiron league returning, an association footballer making his debut, the two winners of the Australian Open, the latest UFC event... and on a darker, off-field note, two entries regarding the closure of a scandal akin to the Weinstein effect, as a pedophile physician who regularly abused American gymnasts is sent to prison. Also shifting things are three Google Doodles - that including the top two entries of the week - and a Reddit topic, four Indian entries (a new Bollywood epic, two historic figures depicted in it, and a national holiday), the Oscar nominations and the latest turmoil the US government has put itself into.

For the week of January 21 to 27, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Virginia Woolf		1,497,132		The feminist icon and author of, among other books, Mrs Dalloway received a Google Doodle celebrating her 126th birthday.
2	Sergei Eisenstein		1,169,678		Like Virginia Woolf, pioneering Soviet filmmaker Eisenstein was born in the 19th century, peaked in the 1920s (including the iconic 1925 film Battleship Potemkin), died in the 1940s, and received a Google Doodle for his birthday (only this time a nice round number, 120).
3	USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal		1,074,940		In 2016, while it was revealed Russia was doping so many athletes to the point a whole slew of them were banned, another Olympics powerhouse saw a scandal that was as bad, if not worse: a former USA Gymnastics national team physician was denounced for sexually abusing over 150 athletes - including McKayla Maroney, seen to the left doing that famous "not impressed" face in illustrious company - since 1992. This week, said physician was sentenced to prison (more on his entry at #11)
4	Tom Brady		980,001		Unlike some of my friends, I don't care for American football. That being said, one of said friends is ecstatic that the Jacksonville Jaguars are incompetent and couldn't stop Brady and the New England Patriots from reaching a second consecutive Super Bowl and his eighth overall.
5	Padmaavat		920,105		India, ya know I love ya but baby you crazy. This week, a historic epic based on the poem Padmavat and starring Deepika Padukone (pictured) was released and is already making some big crore in spite of controversy - Padmaavat has been accused of being right wing and anti Muslim - that led to the movie being banned from a few Indian states, riots, firebombing, death threats to the director and cast, and even threats of mass suicide.
6	Republic Day (India)		832,560		There. See? National holiday! Fun! Do that. Instead of threatening to murder people or set fire to things. Many Indians took it to watch the movie in our previous entry, despite increased security.
7	List of Super Bowl champions		766,992		Self-explanatory, really. Super Bowl LII is next week, and people wanted to remind themselves of the previous 51. The biggest winners are the Pittsburgh Steelers with six, though they can be matched by the New England Patriots if last year's result - seen in the picture, Tom Brady (#4) lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the fifth time - repeats. Add the extended success to the fact that he's married to one of my country's most beautiful women and you can see why many downright envy Brady.
8	Deaths in 2018		765,887		Needs no introduction. And maybe the most notable death last week was Mort Walker, finishing off an impressive 68 years of writing Beetle Bailey.
9	Rani Padmini		730,645		The legendary 13th–14th century Indian queen (Rani) who is the main character of Padmaavat (#5).
10	90th Academy Awards		711,802		The latest Oscar contenders were announced by Andy Serkis and Tiffany Haddish (the latter, clearly struggling with the teleprompter), with the most nominated film being The Shape of Water (#13) amid the expected (most nominees, including Academy regulars Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, and Meryl Streep) and surprises both good (Get Out for Best Picture! Logan for Best Adapted Screenplay!) and bad (The Boss Baby?!) . The ceremony is on March 4th.
11	Larry Nassar		695,318		Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years before we caught this physician who molested gymnasts in the guise of medical treatment (#3). Twenty-five years. And remember that we're talking about a sport usually contested by teenagers! No wonder the thing that actually led Nassar to be arrested was the FBI discovering he had an extensive child pornography collection and a video of him molesting underage girls. The sentence of 60 years in prison seems too light in retrospect.
12	Nick Foles		683,397		Why don't they just have two quarterbacks on the field at the Super Bowl? They're all anyone cares about. Anyway, Foles is the one trying to give the Philadelphia Eagles their first Super Bowl title opposite Tom Brady (#4) and the Patriots, following a humiliating defeat of the Minnesota Vikings (whose stadium will host the NFL final).
13	The Shape of Water (film)		679,508		13 nominations (#10) to a woman having sex with a fish guy. Guillermo, jefe, te amo, pero eres un loco.
14	Alauddin Khalji		676,376		India continues to research the historical figures from Padmaavat (#5). Nothing helps like a little education. Sometimes. Other times it makes things worse. And since it's hard not to read his name as Aladdin: "Gotta keep One Jump Ahead of the breadline, One swing ahead of the sword...:
15	XFL		675,535		Vince McMahon wants to bring this EXTREME! American football league back. Maybe he should just try Aussie rules. Here's waiting for jerseys such as He Hate Me and hoping no injuries that require cloning follow.
16	Caroline Wozniacki		670,675		This Danish tennis player started her 13th year as a pro by finally winning a Grand Slam, beating another player who hadn't won any of the big four (Simona Halep of Romania) in the Australian Open.
17	Siskiwit Lake (Isle Royale)		652,275		Reddit discovered that when an island in this lake contained inside Lake Superior floods, we have an impressive case of recursion: a boulder becomes the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake in the world.
18	Queen Victoria		634,561		PBS is still airing Victoria, the British series about the monarch of the Victorian era, currently portrayed by Jenna Coleman (pictured).
19	Gianni Versace		620,726		Speaking of historical figures on TV, this Italian fashion designer is the subject of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, where he's played by Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (pictured).
20	Government shutdowns in the United States		613,114		The US government having problems might as well be the weather at this point. While Barack Obama faced such a shutdown in 2013 when the majority of Congress was of the opposite party, the one that rolled from January 20 to 23 happened in spite of the majority of Congress being nominally on the same side as President Trump (pictured). Seems like some of them were uneasy approving Trump's decision to screw over the immigrants from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
21	UFC 220		590,545		The latest UFC event was held in Boston. The headliner was a bout where the heavyweight belt was defended by Stipe Miocic - seen to the left wearing a shirt for his hometown's Cleveland Browns, who spent 2017 being clobbered worse than any MMA fighter.
22	Wilder Penfield		566,461		Not a Bond villain, but a pioneering neurosurgeon whose 127th birthday was celebrated with a Google Doodle.
23	Elizabeth II		563,984		The only British monarch to have reigned longer than Victoria (#18) is still holding on due to people binging The Crown on Netflix, where her Majesty is portrayed by an actress with an appropriate middle name: Claire Elizabeth Foy (pictured).
24	Alexis Sánchez		558,091		Sánchez made his Manchester United debut, the first Chilean to ever play for the Red Devils. Hope he can achieve some club success to make up for the fact his national team will miss the World Cup in June.
25	Roger Federer		540,013		Caroline Wozniacki (#16) had never won a Grand Slam. Well, the male champion, Roger Federer has won his twentieth, and his sixth title in Australia also ties him with two others as the biggest winner in Melbourne's court.

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.