Summary: You know a week has been active when it comprises mostly new entries, and it makes sense that it would be dominated by the slightly problematic transition between Popes, taking up 10 slots. And yes, many said viewers were probably Catholic, but in truth, anyone with an interest in current affairs should take notice of the election of a man who claims absolute moral authority over a seventh of the world's population. However, I must say, there is a certain irony in a Google Doodle resulting in a list overwhelmed by religious entries being topped by a dedicated atheist.
For the week of March 10 to March 16, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
If any proof were needed that Wikipedia users are geeks, the fact that a Google Doodle honoring the late (d. 2001) and much-missed sci-fi satirist triggered 20% more views than the top-rated page during Oscar week should clinch it.
Otherwise known as March 15, this date in the Roman calendar is mainly famous as the date of Caesar's assassination and as a chancy gambit for desperate Scrabble players, though its appearance on the Main Page gave a large number of people the chance to finally find out what it means.
Pope-popularity has also rubbed off on this guy, despite his only holding the job for 33 days, before mysteriously dying and inspiring a host of conspiracy theories and a subplot in The Godfather Part III.
Just to be clear, this was probably a 16th-century forgery, which explains why so many of the prophecies up to that time are so mysteriously accurate. That said, the Shroud of Turin shows that reality can't get in the way of a cool concept, and, assuming it's correct, the new Pope will be the last before Armageddon, which should inspire those disappointed by the failure of the 2012 apocalypse.
Popular television series whose third season begins on March 31
This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Notable removals this week: G-force; this has been in the Top 25 since the list was started at the beginning of the year. The continuing popularity of this article, which jumped in June 2012, has been without explanation. Articles on popular scientific concepts get nowhere this level of viewing based on our analysis to date, e.g., Gravitation (49,516 views from March 3-9), and therefore we have decided to remove it from the list as most likely caused by non-human views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish); Cat anatomy (explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts); and Ernst Litfaß, also removed a few weeks ago, is having another unexplained spike in views). Litfaß (or Litfass) was the German inventor of Advertising columns. Whether the views are the work of a spambot with a sense of humour is unknown. The German Wikipedia version saw no view spike, as before.)
Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 358,386. Last week: 352,391.
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