Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-11-29/Traffic report

Traffic report

007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga , Kingsif, Benmite and TheConflux.

The pandemic cancelled Halloween, so instead an even scarier event dominates this report: the American election!

So he strikes, like Thunderball (October 25 to 31, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 25 to 31, 2020)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Sean Connery	3,278,571	It's been a terrible year for James Bond fans, as not only No Time to Die wound up postponed until 2021 due to the pandemic, but death came for the first and still best 007. Proud Scotsman Thomas Sean Connery retired from the film business in an unflattering note with LXG, but thankfully had already left a remarkable filmography behind, where he was a man romancing a thief, Robin Hood, an Immortal, Indiana Jones' father, a submarine captain, a dragon, a spy who escaped from Alcatraz, and, in the role that gave him an Oscar, a cop partner of Elliot Ness who knew how to make use of a corpse.
2	The Queen's Gambit (miniseries)	1,918,895	Netflix continues to release new shows that bring in lots of attention. This time, it's an adaptation of a novel about a chess prodigy who tries to become the world's greatest chess player in the 50s and 60s while struggling with emotional issues and substance abuse.
3	Sacha Baron Cohen	1,409,756	It was a big month for the British actor\comedian, who revived Borat Sagdiyev in #8, released on Prime Video, and played Abbie Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago 7, released on Netflix. (Man, can't wait for theatrical releases to stabilize so films can stop being relegated to streaming.)
4	Khabib Nurmagomedov	1,364,426	One of the most victorious MMA (Mixed martial arts) fighters retired after his bout with Justin Gaethje, leaving behind a record of 29 wins.
5	Amy Coney Barrett	1,336,174	This judge joined the U.S. Supreme Court after the Senate approved her nomination.
6	Mirzapur (TV series)	1,052,322	India pushing in an entry, a Prime Video show about criminals in Purvanchal, starring Pankaj Tripathi (pictured).
7	2016 United States presidential election	1,045,629	On the 9th (thanks, Michael Moore), it will be four years since America chose not to elect Hillary Clinton. Soon the election will show if buyer's remorse settled in or if Trump still has enough supporters.
8	Borat Subsequent Moviefilm	962,702	#3 retired Borat Sagdiyev because a hit movie would make the character too recognizable to continue his 'purpose' of showcasing the worst of his interviewees. Well, what a surprise that Borat returned in Prime Video, roaming the pandemic-infested America of "McDonald Trump" with his daughter Tutar and lots of disguises, embarrassing the common citizen and big names such as "Michael Pen-is" and Rudolph Giuliani along the way.
9	Halloween	956,670	It was a year where Jack Skellington would have reason to try to take over Santa Claus' place, as the spooky part of All Hallows' Eve was a pandemic that made people scared to have parties or go trick-or-treating.
10	Anya Taylor-Joy	938,936	An American-Argentine-British actress, already seen this year in The New Mutants (making her actually fight things after being pestered by a witch and a sociopath with multiple personalities), and currently starring in our #2.

I know the guys that we are choosing from (November 1 to 7, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (November 1 to 7, 2020)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	2016 United States presidential election	9,142,304	The fear of having what put Trump (#6) in the White House repeat itself brought more views to that election that stunned everyone (just see our numbers back in the day!) than whatever was happening in the current one (#4). Pictured: an official ballot from the election. Not all states allow photographs of ballots (for the record, that one's from Wisconsin).
2	Joe Biden	8,426,305	After 3 presidential campaigns, 8 years as VP, and 4 days of vote counting, you have President-Elect Joe Biden. The day he's inaugurated, he'll be the oldest president in history. It's probably appropriate he also landed at #2 here. In contrast to his opponent, #6, and running mate, #5, Biden hasn't yet topped this list since it began to be tabulated in 2013.
3	United States Electoral College	8,336,683	The only college from which you can never graduate. For those not from the United States, and those from the United States, it's an archaic system that means you vote and then other people also vote based on how you voted. The party it advantages has varied from election to election, but right now, it's solidly favoring the Republican Party. Apparently it was designed to empower slave-owners, so it's kind of ironic how it should be installing a Black woman in the coming months.
4	2020 United States presidential election	7,181,141	Because of an abundance of mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a certain soon-to-be-ex-president not wanting them to start counting until after polls closed, this year's election took longer than usual to be called (and to think one of the writers lives in a country where 100% of the vote is electronic, and the counting is over in just one day!). Pictured: The public responds in the streets after Biden was announced President-Elect.
5	Kamala Harris	5,636,406	While she may be the first, she will not be the last woman, woman of color, Black woman, or woman of Asian descent to be vice president. Much less relevant, she's the first Democratic president or vice president from the West Coast.^[a] Who knew!
6	Donald Trump	3,253,619	Receiving about 5 million less views than #2... Did I say views? I meant votes. No, make that both. You're Fired!
7	2012 United States presidential election	3,074,994	The second time #2 got elected as VP. Pictured: President Obama receiving a concession phone call from Mitt Romney hours after polling closed. All of these elections were probably boosted by the prominent links from presidential election page to presidential election page.
8	2008 United States presidential election	2,954,352	Until this week, the 2008 election saw the highest number of votes for a Presidential ticket in U.S. history, with #16 taking the top spot and #2 as VP. The election was lost by the late John McCain (pictured), a diplomatic moderate Republican from Arizona beloved by his home state, #6's policies and insults towards McCain in recent years may have (along with massive minority turn-out) swung the traditionally red state to turn blue. Not that we're certain; Arizona and neighbor Nevada are still counting.
9	Sean Connery	2,339,531	This recently-deceased legendary Scottish actor is still being remembered.
10	2000 United States presidential election	2,201,274	This election also notably took a while to decide, based on voting irregularities that have since been long fixed. Pictured: The languishing recount in southern Florida.

^ Richard Nixon was born in California, and was both a Representative and a Senator from that state – Signpost editors

Are they all a bunch of jerks? (November 8 to 14, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (November 8 to 14, 2020)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Donald Trump	15,162,676	Where to begin? At the start of the week that redeemed 2020, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected President and VP of the United States of America. This is a big deal. One of the most notable people who doesn't like that fact is Donald Trump – also the outgoing President, joining a very short list of one-term presidents and starting a new list of one-term presidents who have been impeached – who still, as of writing, refuses to concede (not a necessary step in removal of a president, but a polite one) and demands his legal challenges against nearly every state that voted for Biden be taken seriously. That's hard to do when the man announcing the lawsuits is making his big speech by some flyers out the back of a garage of a landscaping company next to a porn shop in an industrial unit in northeast Philly. Trump has been popular on Wikipedia for a long time; though he hasn't hit #1 in awhile (after all, nearly everyone knows who he is). He topped the list once in 2015, a whopping nine times in 2016, and twice in 2017. His article is also the second-most popular of all time, trailing only United States.
2	Kamala Harris	9,602,086
3	Joe Biden	6,496,836
4	2020 United States presidential election	3,200,218
5	Alex Trebek	2,626,849	Trebek, the longstanding host of Jeopardy!, passed away November 8 from pancreatic cancer. Trebek was one of the most popular people on television. On almost any other week, he would almost certainly have been #1 on this list.
6	Jill Biden	2,562,638	Members of the incoming First and Second Families. Doug becomes the first Second Gentleman. (and his first wife would be #28 if this was a Top 30)
7	Beau Biden	2,474,577
8	Douglas Emhoff	1,962,545
9	The Queen's Gambit (miniseries)	1,804,738	Netflix still captivates enough to break up the election families.
10	Shyamala Gopalan	1,733,395	VP-Elect Kamala Harris's mother, who she spoke of in her acceptance speech, about how she who immigrated from India at the age of 19, and sent powerful messages about dreaming to young minority girls around the world.

But that's how voting works! (November 15 to 21, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (November 15 to 21, 2020)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Donald Trump	6,387,834	Donald Trump, in a preposterous fourteenth time getting #1 on this list, has officially become the child we never asked for who throws a temper tantrum whenever he’s told it’s time to put his toys away and go to bed. You'd think people would already know who Trump is and not bother reading his Wikipedia article, but nope. How wonderful. For those who were comatose for the past few weeks (or for those who don’t live in the United States and can afford not to hear about American politics) Trump still refuses to concede to the real winner (#24) of the recent presidential election (#12). However, for a moment, it seemed as though Our Man in Mar-a-Lago was finally getting past the first stage of grief when he tweeted out a semi-concession to his rival ("He won..."), albeit with yet another baseless accusation of voter fraud ("...because the Election was Rigged,"), only to, for once in his life, actually think about the implications of what he was saying and immediately take it back. The Trump legal team worked overtime last week filing tons of useless lawsuits to try to invalidate as many Biden votes as they could, and, in a turn of events that everyone saw coming, most of them were dismissed from the get-go. As evidenced by the numbers on this list, Trump is doing exactly what he knows how to do best, which is keep his name in the headlines. As tiresome as his shenanigans may be, it’s doubtful that he’ll cease until Joe Biden is inaugurated, but there’s uncertainty surrounding his willingness to even let that happen without things getting ugly. Anyway, here’s a particularly rousing moment from one of his speeches in 2018.
2	Margaret Thatcher	2,929,180	The Crown released its fourth season, now in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and thus boosting the views of some important British women: the ever-controversial Prime Minister known as "Iron Lady" (when she died, "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" entered the charts!), played there by Gillian Anderson, and the ever-beloved Princess known as "People's Princess" (when she died, "Candle in the Wind 1997" dominated the charts), played there by Emma Corrin .
3	Diana, Princess of Wales	2,839,941
4	Megan is Missing	2,340,447	Well, I guess they Found her. This 2011 found footage horror film about the titular Megan and her friend going titular-ly missing after being (SPOILER!) abducted and killed by a creeper that Megan meets on the internet hasn’t seen much buzz since its release. Even then, its discussion was mostly kept to the internet, where it was lambasted for being rife with continuity errors, exploitation, and clumsy acting, writing, directing, you name it. It was so bad, it even got banned in New Zealand! Then again, so did Mad Max... But recently, like many a forgotten franchise (looking at you, Clone High), the film has been given new life by TikTok users, most of whom seem particularly shaken by its final act. It was enough for the movie’s writer-director-editor Michael Goi to venture onto the platform, where he issued a "warning" telling viewers not to watch it alone or in the dark, which is clearly meant to be an advertisement for the film rather than a deterrent. (He also says that this is the "customary warning" he used to give people before they watched the film despite the warning showing up nowhere in the film itself. As one TikTok comment puts it, "ITS A LITTLE LATE FOR THIS MICHAEL".) All I’ll say is this: if you’re looking for a found footage movie about a teenage girl gone missing, stick to Searching.
5	Elizabeth II	2,241,692	The Crown again, only this time with people born in the royal family. Let's see, there's the show's main character (the Queen from The Favourite), the uncle of her husband who was killed by the IRA (the Hand of the King from Game of Thrones), her sister (the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland), and her son who remains waiting for the throne at the age of 72 (...OK, Josh O'Connor hasn't played another royal yet).
6	Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma	2,169,279
7	Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon	2,018,293
8	Charles, Prince of Wales	1,747,672
9	The Queen's Gambit (miniseries)	1,526,501	It seems like the world won’t stop telling me to watch this show, and as much as I say I don’t have time, I definitely do, I just lack motivation. But I have faith that, once I get around to it, watching it will be worth it. It’s already become one of the top 100 highest-rated shows of all time on IMDb with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and has maintained a spot on the Top 25 for 4 weeks. Who knew people loved chess that much? Well, it might just be that they like watching a show about people playing it. In any case, I would genuinely love to see a series about the guys who play chess at McDonald’s (and trust me, there are plenty).
10	Anne, Princess Royal	1,381,775	British royals again! To wit, #5's only daughter, played in The Crown by Erin Doherty.

Exclusions

These lists exclude 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 Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

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Hey now, Clone High is not "forgotten"! Especially since it features the best take on Gandhi in all of Western media.

(Though the Gandhi from the original 1991 release of Sid Meier's Civlization would've been a close second, if only the story of an integer underflow bug that flipped peace-loving Gandhi's Aggression stat to maximum and turned him into a warmongering Nuclear warlord were actually true. But alas, as our own article notes, there's no evidence to support the bug rumor. And fairly compelling evidence that the whole thing was fabricated decades later, for the lulz.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 04:50, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Can afford not to hear about American politics" I really don't like it when Americans think non-American people have it better at their home countries -Gouleg🛋️ (Talk • Contribs) 15:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think the author's nationality matters in this comment. Think of us all as Wikipedians. But I'd guess the author is not American in any case. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:25, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nationalistic

Badly written. U.S.-centric. A disgrace. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:02, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- It's U.S-centric because it reflects a period where everyone (though possibly mostly Americans) went checking on every article related to the election. And continuing the short discussion above, a great reminder for this Brazilian writer that the politics are as bad there as in his country. igordebraga ≠ 16:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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