This could be the beginning of a new era for this list. Until now, decisions to remove suspicious content have been largely educated guesswork. This week though, we have a new collaborator who can shine a light on the origins and patterns, sorting once and for all the webwheat from the cyberchaff. Of course, it also means we will have to start including articles we would have once excluded, regardless of whether we can find a reason or not. So expect a lot more certainty and a lot more bewilderment. Bewilderment pretty much sums up the state of the world right now, as Britain recovers from its brief flirtation with non-existence, and ISIS continues to provoke the West.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
For the week of September 14 to 20, 2014, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottish independence referendum, 2014 | 
|
921,412 |  |
Well, the Nationalists' overnight surge that actually made the dismemberment of Britain seem plausible for a moment, and captured the romantic imaginings of the English-speaking world, turned out to be a ghost, as the Scots ultimately voted as they'd always said they would: a small but decent majority in favour of staying together. Now the only question is where to go from here. Thankfully, we have loads of international crises to distract us from that question. |
| 2 | Scotland | 
|
585,032 | .jpg) |
The land of Rabbie Burns and Walter Scott, whisky and haggis, Braveheart and Trainspotting became the focus of the Anglosphere's attention this week, thanks to the whiffs of freedom drifting from a few late polls. No doubt the fact that sizeable populations in Britain's many onetime overseas colonies can trace their ancestry back there played a role as well. |
| 3 | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant |
|
548,101 |  |
Numbers are down a bit from last week, but since this week closed before Barack Obama's decision to bomb ISIS bases in Syria without Syria's permission, expect them to skyrocket in the next update. |
| 4 | Deaths in 2014 | 
|
414,034 |  |
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. |
| 5 | Ruin value | 
|
408,271 |  |
Ruin value, or ruinenwert, is a term employed by the Nazis, who believed that buildings should be designed so that their ruins would be aesthetically pleasing, as discussed on a Reddit thread this week. |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 
|
407,637 |  |
The nation in which I happen to live managed to escape dismemberment this week, but, like a man waking up with a hangover, we have many questions regarding what exactly just happened and where we go from here. |
| 7 |
|
396,115 | .JPG) |
A perennially popular article. | |
| 8 | Theodore Roosevelt |
|
395,077 |  |
The first President Roosevelt was one of several members of his family to get noticed this week, thanks to the launch of the latest Ken Burns miniseries, The Roosevelts, on PBS on 14 September. |
| 9 |
|
355,244 |  |
Always a fairly popular article. | |
| 10 | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
|
343,715 |  |
The longest-serving American president got his dues for the same reason his fourth cousin once removed did (see #8). |
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