Month in Review: February

Team Farticles

Congratulations to Farticles (Team 4), who has pulled ahead in February!

The current team ranks are as follows:

Farticles (Team 4): 149.5 points (+88.5 in February)
50 Shades of Wiki (Team 3): 133.5 points (+79.5 in February)
The Google, The Veto, and the Mr. Mom (Team 6): 113.5 points (+61.5 in February)
Hot Chicks & Jesus (Team 2): 108.5 points (+76.5 in February)
D's Asters (Team 8): 91.5 points (+25.5 in February)

Giant Clam (Team 1): 57.5 points (+25.5 in February)

Wiki Wiki What?! (Team 7): 29.5 points (+7.5 points in February)
E-Cigs in Space (Team 5): 21 points (+3 points in February)

Farticles has a good lead over second place 50 Shades of Wiki. It's not locked up yet for Farticles though; points scored in March are worth twice as much those awarded in January.

In the middle of the pack are three teams: The Google, The Veto, and The Mr. Mom, Hot Chicks & Jesus, and D's Asters. D's Asters was really the only team to change positions this month; last month's first place team is now in fifth place. D's Asters didn't get the strong Oscars performance that pushed up both Hot Chicks & Jesus and The Google, The Veto, and the Mr. Mom. Still, all these teams are still contenders for first place; a 50 point difference could be made up (look at the difference between the top 4 teams and the bottom 4 teams this month).

At the bottom are Giant Clam, who's comfortably in 6th place, and the two teams struggling to stay out of last place. E-Cigs in Space had the unfortunate placement of Beck on the bench, otherwise Wiki Wiki What?! would be at the bottom.

Articles in detail:

Oscars: Unlike last month, there weren't many major trends affecting multiple articles. The Academy Awards ceremony was the biggest one. The articles scoring big from the Oscars are Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, and Stephen Hawking (all +22.5), and both Reese Witherspoon and Clint Eastwood (both +15). 

New movies: The film version of "Fifty Shades of Grey" brought the article Fifty Shades of Grey up to (+22.5 points), and anticipation of "Jurassic World" continued to bring Jurassic Park to the maximum of +22.5.

Musicians: Katy Perry's performance at the Super Bowl gave her a large bump early in the month, bringing the article Katy Perry to +12. Beck saw more pageviews due to Beck's Grammy win, but E-Cigs in Space was unable to capitalize, since Beck was on his bench this month.

International Crises: The terrorist group ISIS reminded people to check out Iraq and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which are both up +12. Other pages for international leaders, including Kim Jong-Un (+22.5), Fidel Castro (+12) and Angela Merkel (+12), got more activity; Merkel in particular was involved in the continued Greek debt drama and the crisis in Ukraine.

Other news events: Ebola (+22.5) and OPEC (+15) continue to get more pageviews in 2015. Israel (+12) has started to flare up in advance of the upcoming elections and Prime Minister Netanyahu's imminent visit to Congress. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (+22.5) has become a sort of cult hero after drinking too much wine and falling asleep at the State of the Union earlier this year.

Unknown: We are all befuddled about Bank (+22.5), whose pageview history can be seen below. The other big movers were Taylor Swift (+22.5) and Google (+12). I'm not sure what Google has done recently that is newsworthy, and I wouldn't even know where to start figuring out the psychology that has driven more people to the Taylor Swift Wikipedia page this year. Here is the bizarre graph for Wikipedia pageviews for Bank: