It's not really all that great, but it's going to be great.

...
28. George W. Bush
29. Adolf Hitler
30. Penis
31. Ann Coulter
...

Porn is number 13? What. The. Hell? Who looks for pron on wikipedia?

Pron

I always like looking at stuff like that.

Like tags used on flickr in the past 24 hours or the past week:

Over the last week
eclissi, mondfinsternis, maansverduistering, wondercon, mooneclipse, mar07, totaleclipse, lunarossa, eclipselunar, beyondbroadcast, approm, wondercon2007, shrove, losangelesmarathon, kiwifoo, lunareclipse, womensday, totallunareclipse, eclipse, eclisse

I love how it reflects certain current events. #22 on the Wiki link is Lunar Eclipse, while "eclissi," (Italian for eclipse); "mondfinsternis" (German for Lunar Eclipse); "maansverduistering" (Dutch for 'Moon Darkening'); mooneclipse; totaleclipse; lunarossa (Italian for 'red moon'); eclipselunar; lunareclipse; totallunareclipse; and so on are all because of the (YOU GUESSED IT) lunar eclipse that happened recently! And it forces you to realize that there is life outside of your own little bubble, that other photographers in other countries were totally psyched for this eclipse too. I don't know why but shit like that really interests me.

It's all about sex and Pokemon. Just like life.

That's really funny...The vast difference between 4-14 and 14-21 really made me laugh. But then again, specklet may be right.

What's up with the Battle of Thermopylae?

(Also, I think it's pretty neat that even the most popular page (well, aside from the front page) accounts for only about a tenth of a percent of the total traffic.)

The new movie 300 is about the 300 Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae. Public has to get their history somehow.

Do you remember your teen years?

16. Pornography
17. Masturbation
18. Oral sex
19. Vagina
20. Sexual intercourse

!!!

That is a truly strange list, but I'm sure there's a mass media/pop culture explanation for all but the sex ones. I was impressed with the public interest in classical history until the mention of 300. The sex searches are just your perennial adolescent searches -- Wikipedia is usually allowed through school firewalls, after all. And anyone who ever worked as a library page knows which encyclopedia volumes were most dogeared.

I am sure there is a way to make money off of this information, but I'm not great at thinking that way.

I'm not saying people aren't interested in porn, I just find it really surprising that anybody would bother to look for it on wikipedia and not one of the, say, twenty gazillion porn sites on the internet.

I get the impression that many people are confusing the wikipedia search box for a generic search box.

"maansverduistering" (Dutch for 'Moon Darkening')

Taken as separate words and translated very literally perhaps, yes; but of course this (compound) noun has only one sense and that would be "lunar eclipse". I'm sure you got that CitrusFreak (as it was your point, after all), I just wanted to make it clear.

Of course "verduister(en)" on it's own *can* mean "to darken, obscure, obfuscate"; but in fact, it can also be used as a somewhat formal form of "to steal". In that sense, "maansverduistering" could be parsed as "Moon theft"! Ooh, spooky space crime! :)

Also, it should be noted that the ideal viewing area for last week's eclipse extended over Europe and Africa, thus almost by definition raising the language count.

If the core shadow had extended over the Americas this time around, I'd wager you'd see English and Spanish tags and not a whole lot else.

I just find it really surprising that anybody would bother to look for it on wikipedia and not one of the, say, twenty gazillion porn sites on the internet

That's why I mentioned that Wikipedia is not often blocked by the content firewalls set up by schools. In schools, you can't access the gazillion pron sites you refer to - but you can put the screen up on Wikipedia, elbow your buddy, and snicker. It's quite analogous to the old encylopedia thing -- your school is not going to have The Story of O in its library, but it's gonna have an encylopedia with diagrams of reproductive systems. Not the same thing, but sort of in the ballpark, if you're 13.

...Not the same thing, but sort of in the ballpark, if you're 13.

Ah! Those were the days....