Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time

The net punking of Kanye West, which redirected the web address "loser.com" to his Wiki page, shot him to the top of the list and got Wikipedia in the news again. Other than that, a dull week, with only three new entries in the top 10: a UFC champion, a Google Doodle and a Hindu festival involving people throwing powder at each other (though that does sound fun).

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

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of 1 to 7 March 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	Kanye West		4,291,451		The rapper/entrepreneur is, it is fair to say, a polarising figure. Whether he's campaigning against other artists' award wins during their acceptance speeches, comparing himself to God and Picasso, or naming his daughter North West, it seems the 21-time Grammy winner just can't stop throwing the media for a loop. But it seems his most persistent recent gaffe has been his ill-judged tirade against Beck, winner of this year's Grammy for album of the year, which has apparently earned him the undying enmity of Beck fans. This enmity has manifested itself in many ways, but this week, the web address "loser.com", which just happens to share a name with Beck's best known single, was redirected to his Wikipedia page. This redirect has led, naturally, to a spike in views to said page. The perpetrator of this egregious offence eventually made himself known as Brian Connelly, a 44-year-old systems analyst from South Carolina, whose reasons are apparently deep-seated. "I went to Bonnaroo last year," he told The Daily Beast, "He started yelling, 'Where the press at? Point out the press!' and started going crazy and yelling at everybody about how they didn't respect his genius. Then he started naming names of people he should be compared to—George Washington, Henry Ford, etc ... And he didn't even play 'Gold Digger'."
2	Momofuku Ando		1,705,988		A Google doodle for the noodle guru occurred on his would-have-been 105th birthday on 5 March.
3	House of Cards (U.S. TV series)		885,920		The third season of this political thriller TV series debuted in its entirety on Netflix on 27 February.
4	Leonard Nimoy		873,806		The death on 27 February of this beloved actor, best known for playing the role of Mr. Spock in the Star Trek franchise, led to widespread tributes. Spock's Vulcan salute bade us to "live long and prosper," as Nimoy did himself.
5	Stephen Hawking		841,024		The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon makes his 18th straight appearance in the Top 25 this week. And at the Oscars, Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor for portraying him in The Theory of Everything.
6	Ronda Rousey		788,398		The UFC women's bantamweight champion beat Cat Zingano in a record-breaking 14 seconds during UFC 184 on 28 February.
7	Fifty Shades of Grey		736,594		The release of the film adaptation of this onetime Twilight fanfic continues to draw fans, though a 74% drop in views on the second weekend and a 56% drop on the third weekend suggest that everyone who was going to see it has done so.
8	House of Cards (season 3)		554,178		see #3
9	Holi		591,417		This fun Hindu festival of colours and love, notable for people throwing coloured powder on the streets, fell on 6 March this year.
10	Fifty Shades of Grey (film)		585,927		See #7.

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11 March 2015 (all comments)

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• Please also check out the automated top 20 most edited articles, which at least this week is considerably more highbrow than the most read. EllenCT (talk) 23:57, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relax Ellen; I linked to it in the article. Serendi^podous 00:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you! EllenCT (talk) 05:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Serendipodous: Thought for the most edits link ... as it continually updates, perhaps you could use a permalink to synch it with the regular traffic report week? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:08, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have no idea how to do that. Serendi^podous 09:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • E.g. this week's link would be to [1] (for the week of March 1-8). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• If Terry Pratchett isn't in there next week, I will be very upset. Circéus (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Circéus, initial indicators suggest he'll at least be in the Top 25. If you have proposed commentary that you think should appear in the rightmost column, please park it in on my talk page because I have no idea who he is!--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Really? Well, I guess he was only the second most-read living British author after J.K. Rowling, after all... It's so upsetting to me because he's the first author I was a really big fan of that died during my lifetime. Circéus (talk) 14:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Really, I was not aware of him by name, but its possible I know some of his work and don't realize it. I just looked at the raw data, and he'll be #3 on the next traffic report.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 14:51, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]