Jews wished each other Shanah Tovah ("Good year") this week as Rosh Hashanah was our most popular article. It was also a week not dominated by heavy news and tragedies, so aside from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (#2, sixth week in the Top 10), our popular article list runs the gamut of current events including new television series Gotham (#3), the 2014 Asian Games (#4), and Reddit-fueled popularity for German director Uwe Boll (#7). In the greater Top 25, notable events included the Mars Orbiter Mission reaching Mars (#11) and the marriage of accomplished lawyer Amal Alamuddin (#21) to an American actor. There was also a great deal of bot activity in our exclusions list this week; while this is not usually something worth noting, an identical large spike of views hitting Scotland, England, and Marriage from 26–28 September is duly acknowledged with a chuckle.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
For the week of 21 to 27 September 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 | Rosh Hashanah | 
|
581,893 |  |
That's the Jewish New Year to the rest of us. Jews the world over ushered in the year 5775. With just over 580,000 views, that's within 10,000 of the viewcounts on the chart last year, when the holiday had to settle for the #2 spot after Lil Wayne. |
| 2 | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant | 
|
580,884 |  |
ISIL continues to remain in the Top 10 for a sixth consecutive week (and eighth in the Top 25), as military action against the brutal group by a large coalition of countries begins to take shape. |
| 3 | Gotham (TV series) |
|
577,423 |  |
This American TV series is yet another reboot of the Batman franchise, and debuted on 22 September 2014. |
| 4 | 2014 Asian Games |
|
503,064 |  |
The 2014 Asian Games, a pan-Asian sporting event held every four years, commenced its 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea on 19 September; the event will run through 4 October. The 2014 Games have 28 Olympic sports, as well as eight non-Olympic sports including baseball and sepak takraw (kick volleyball). The 2014 Asian Games medal table currently shows China at the 2014 Asian Games with a runaway lead, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Kazakhstan. |
| 5 | Derek Jeter | 
|
457,031 |  |
This very accomplished baseball player for the New York Yankees completed his 20th and final season in Major League Baseball in the United States. In his last at-bat in his final game on 28 September, Jeter hit a single off Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz. After being replaced by a pinch runner, he received a rare ovation from Red Sox fans as he exited the field. |
| 6 | August 2014 celebrity photo leaks |
|
454,221 |  |
After dropping out of the Top 25 for a week, this tawdry story about the hack into dozens of personal files that celebrities (including Jennifer Lawrence, pictured) unwittingly stored on Apple's iCloud was back in the news with additional reports of leaked photos. And since these new leaks occurred in September, the article has been moved once again and now can be found at 2014 celebrity photo leaks. |
| 7 | Uwe Boll |
|
453,240 |  |
Boll is a German film director whose work has included many films adapted from video games, many of which are listed among the worst ever made. His article became popular this week due to a Reddit "Today I Learned" thread which noted that in attempting to get the rights to make a World of Warcraft film, Boll was told "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you." |
| 8 | 
|
427,481 |  |
Always a fairly popular article. | |
| 9 | Deaths in 2014 | 
|
412,368 |  |
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article. Deaths noted this week include Frieda Szwillus on 21 September at age 112, the oldest living person in Germany; Russian mathematician Alexey Chervonenkis (22 September); former Afghan provincial governor Mullah Ghani, killed by unknown gunmen (23 September); Japanese butoh dancer Carlotta Ikeda, pictured at left (24 September); Estonian singer Jaak Joala (25 September), who also covered Western pop music in Estonian, (see this nifty 1981 cover of Billy Joel's All for Leyna (25 September); British actress Maggie Stables (26 September), and Hungarian architect Antti Lovag (27 September) |
| 10 |
|
408,018 | .JPG) |
A perennially popular article, unlikely to be unseated anytime soon by Ello. |
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