You didn't miss much: The late-summer smash success of Straight Outta Compton remains the chief talking point of the English-speaking world, interrupted only by the welcome return of a Google Doodle.
Yeah, we missed last week. No particular reason why, except that there are only two of us working on this and sometimes we have conflicting schedules. For an idea of what last week's list was like, however, see this week's list. And the week before's. The world appears to be in little mood to be interesting right now. The late-summer smash success of Straight Outta Compton remains the chief talking point of the English-speaking world, interrupted only by the welcome return of a Google Doodle, which topped the list for the first time since 10 May.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of August 23 to 29, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duke Kahanamoku | 
|
1,445,269 |  |
Google Doodles don't lead to number 1 articles as often as they used to, so when they do, you can bet it will be someone special. This Olympic champion swimmer, who was born into the Kingdom of Hawaii but lived well into his homeland's statehood, is widely regarded as the St Paul of surfing, as his travels and swimming exhibitions during the 1910s are widely credited with evangelising the formerly uniquely Hawaiian sport across the globe. |
| 2 | SummerSlam (2015) |
|
950,916 | WWE's latest pay-per-view pantomime, which took place on August 23, 2015, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, has been hovering on this list's margins for weeks now, so it's not surprising to see it so high this week. | |
| 3 | Ashley Madison |
|
898,250 | .jpg) |
Well, they said they were going to do it, and they did. "The Impact Team", a group of hackers of definite if somewhat ill-conceived moral purpose, became so incensed with the cheating date site's misleading of their supposedly 33 million-strong clientèle (in fact, only 1 in 3000 of their female accounts are real) that they threatened to publish the details of said clientèle online and ruin their lives. Once again guys, your targets are decent but your methods need work. Anyway, the company didn't back down, and now those names are on the Internet for all to see. Result? Several broken marriages, at least two suicides, and the embarrassment of several high-profile individuals, including, in a delicious bit of irony, the CEO of Ashley Madison, who resigned from the company. The reported $750 million in threatened lawsuits couldn't have helped either. |
| 4 | Eazy-E | 
|
816,719 |  |
The founding member of N.W.A., whose death from AIDS at the age of just 31 forms the emotional climax of the film Straight Outta Compton, falls from #1 last week. |
| 5 | Until Dawn |
|
795,831 | The year's first "big" video game, this "interactive horror film" has been getting positive reactions from critics and the public; it seems the never-really-liked genre of interactive movies may finally have found a plotline that works. | |
| 6 | Donald Trump | 
|
728,358 |  |
Nothing can stop the Donald; he's even managed to test the power of traditional Republican kingmaker Fox News, as apparently earning their opprobrium over his treatment of their star face Megyn Kelly hasn't damaged him in the polls. What did he do this week? Well, not much, except starting a feud with Univision reporter Jorge Ramos, making fun of Asian "Engrish" speech patterns, slamming Jeb Bush by quoting his mother at him ("We've had enough Bushes", she apparently said), and, of course, posting a seemingly endless stream of insulting tweets, some at 3 in the morning. |
| 7 | Fear the Walking Dead |
|
724,778 |  |
AMC's spin-off to their hit series The Walking Dead premiered on 23 August. |
| 8 | Straight Outta Compton (2015 film) |
|
667,151 | The biopic of the short-lived but electrifying hip-hop group N.W.A. was released on August 14 to superb reviews and blockbuster business- its $56 million opening weekend gross was higher than those for Terminator Genisys and Pixels combined, and it has held the #1 slot at the US box office for three weeks to a total of $134 million. It's interesting to note that African Americans make up just 12% of the US population, and films aimed specifically at that market, like those of Tyler Perry, are considered hits if they reach $60 million after their entire runs. That shows the breadth of this the movie's appeal across racial lines. That the film's story chimed so well with recent events in America likely also played a role. | |
| 9 | Dr. Dre |
|
587,509 |  |
Far and away the most successful talent to emerge from N.W.A., Dr. Dre would go on to shepherd talents such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar, and ultimately become the richest man in hip hop, after Apple Inc.'s purchase of his company Beats Electronics earned him $620 million. He has wondered in the past if people have forgotten him; well, the release of Straight Outta Compton has put that fear to rest. The soundtrack for Straight Outta Compton is Dre's first album in 16 years, and opened at #2 at the US chart amid critical acclaim. But his co-producing credit on the Straight Outta Compton film has also drawn some negative attention to its apparent ignorance of Dre's abusive past with women, for which Dre has copiously mea culpa-ed this week, no doubt to clear the air with Apple. |
| 10 | Ice Cube |
|
575,126 |  |
While still very much a rapper, the onetime N.W.A. member is now arguably better known as an actor and a filmmaker. At the suggestion of John Singleton, he adapted his lyrical talents into screenwriting, and the result was the hit Friday film series, which introduced the world, for better or worse, to Chris Tucker. He also starred in a number of hit films including Are We There Yet? and Ride Along. And his son is carrying on the family business by playing him in Straight Outta Compton, but before you cry nepotism, the kid's getting good reviews. |
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Hey, I signed up to be notified if you guys needed help. Next time instead of punting, let me punt please? EllenCT (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]