Wikinews:2025 Boost publication rate/Monthly top article/Updates
This page serves as the central hub for general updates related to the Monthly Top Article initiative. Each month, a new section will be added with a summary of that month’s top-performing article, along with insights into overall publication activity and how it contributes to our yearly goals. These updates are based on data compiled monthly, and they provide a snapshot of our ongoing progress throughout the calendar year.
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April 2025
Top article: "Streaming platform Twitch bans rapper Kanye West seven minutes into first stream for performing "Nazi salute""
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Lofi Gurl (original author)
- BigKrow (who's on a streak!)
- Dsuke1998AEOS
- ForTheGrammar
Our monthly pub rate is increasing month-over-month and our monthly rate of days with 0 articles published is decreasing. Both numbers indicate an increase in reviewer activity for the year.
There were a number of pages published in April that had issues and required corrections. All of the errors were unforced errors that could have been caught in the review process. This is unsustainable.
The number of page views the top article receives each month has been trending up. This could be the result of increased activity (increased pub rate). Note that the data is crude and does not reflect much more. The primary goal of the Monthly top article challenge is to encourage contributors to write and otherwise contribute to more stories.
However, we must remember that Wikinews operates on an implicit “quality in, quality out” principle. If an article is incomplete, unverified, or non-neutral going into review, it won’t magically become solid journalism on the other side. Once published, we can’t count on fixes after the fact.
May 2025
This month's top article by number of page-views: Authorities arrest Belarusian Wikipedia sysop and only bureaucrat Maksim Lepushenka with 1,768 page-views as of June 19, 2025.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Oleg Yunakov (original author)
- Darkfrog24
- BigKrow
- Wikiwide
The up-trend in page-views continues. This may support a hypothesis that an increased publishing rate contributes to an increase in page-views. However, this increase has come at the cost of more corrections, which are unforced errors that must be avoided in the future.
June 2025
In the graph on the left titled "Monthly pub rate for 2025," there is an added metric; site views. This metric reports total page views for the Wikinews.org site.
We're six months into the Monthly top article challenge, and early signs point to modest but meaningful progress. Key metrics like total siteviews [1], active editors [2], and total user edits [3] are all trending upward.
While page-view data has its limitations, for example it doesn’t show how thoroughly articles are read, it still offers useful insight into reader engagement. The upward trends taken together suggest a virtuous cycle: more published articles bring more contributors, which leads to more published articles. To keep this momentum going, our next challenge is clear: find effective ways to publish more articles, which will likely require more active reviewers, among other things. Hopefully the m:Public consultation about Wikinews will provide meaningful feedback that will help inform how we achieve that.
This month's top article by number of page-views: Boeing 787 crashes into Indian medical school, killing hundreds with 3,666 pageviews as of July 11, 2025
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Darkfrog24 (Original author)
- Gryllida
- BigKrow
July 2025
Reviewer activity in July dropped sharply, likely due to the m:Public consultation about Wikinews. Only two reviewers published articles in July, the lowest level since February.
While we did beat last year's average articles published and number of days with 0 articles, momentum has declined since May. April and May saw abnormally high publication rates, which likely boosted page and site views. Matching that output with high-quality content could significantly improve both reader and contributor engagement.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "20-year-old astrophotographer captures rare solar eclipse on Saturn" with 3,583 pageviews as of July 31, 2025
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Frodo Maximus (original author)
- Darkfrog24
- Gryllida
- Ternera
- Lofi Gurl
August 2025
Over the past four months our publication rate has dropped from April’s high of 46 articles to just 9 in August, while zero-day counts have steadily risen to their highest point this year. Despite this decline in output, siteviews have remained strong and our top stories — notably the June Boeing crash and July Saturn eclipse — drew several thousand views each, well above the yearly average. August marked both the lowest article count and the highest zero-day total of 2025, underscoring a widening gap between consistent reader interest and falling publication activity.
Reader interest (siteviews) trails publication activity by about one month. A big publishing push in April (46 articles) aligned with record-high siteviews in May. Likewise, as article output dropped in June and July, siteviews fell one month later.
The more data we collect, the clearer the pattern becomes: consistent publication is critical to sustaining audience engagement. When output falls, the impact is felt in readership the following month.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "Several people hospitalized after thousands of hotdogs spill following collision on interstate in Pennsylvania" with 2,685 pageviews as of August 31.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Lofi Gurl (original author)
- BigKrow
- Dsuke1998AEOS
September 2025
We've had only 2 or fewer publishing reviewers since June. This is the first month only 1 reviewer published articles. There were a few days in September that had an inactive review queue (meaning empty), which is relatively rare. Both the downtrend in published articles and uptrend in days with 0 articles published continue. Our site-view count is now below January's and is the lowest for the 2025. Interestingly, the page-views for the top article are the highest for the year so far.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "Shark attack kills Australian surfer off Long Reef Beach, Sydney" with 4,803 pageviews as of September 13.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
October 2025
This is the second month in a row that we have published fewer articles than our 2024 monthly average and our downtrend continues. Our 0-days count is also the highest recorded in 2025 and continues its upward trend. Our number of site-views for October is the lowest recorded for 2025.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "Israeli naval ships intercept Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla" with 3,032 page-views as of November 13.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- BigKrow (original author again!)
- Sheminghui.WU
- Metropolitan90
There were a lot of edits to this article and that shows great collaboration and demonstrates we do leverage the wiki model (maybe not a lot, but we do!).
November 2025
We published more articles than the 2024 monthly average and had slightly fewer 0-days in November, an improvement and hopefully the beginning of a reversal of a negative trend in both since June. Site-views of Wikinews continues its decline. We had roughly 1.8 million views in November, down from roughly 2.2 million in October and 12.1 million in June, our peak for the year. We had three publishing reviewers this month. The last time we had that many was June. November also included a long holiday weekend in the US, with significantly reduced activity for a few days.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "India wins 2025 Women's Cricket World Cup, defeating South Africa by 52 runs" with 2,218 page-views as of December 14.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- Asked42 (original author)
- BigKrow
- Metropolitan90
- Bddpaux
December 2025
This is the second consecutive month in which publication volume exceeded the 2024 average while the number of zero-publication days remained lower than in 2024. Overall site-views also increased in December, coinciding with higher publication activity in November compared to October.
These results are consistent with a correlation between publication frequency and readership, as measured by site- and page-views. This does not argue for prioritizing speed over accuracy. Rather, it suggests that maintaining a sustainable balance between the two may support improved readership over time.
This month's top article by number of page-views: "Raccoon found passed out in liquor store after drunken rampage" with 3,042 page-views as of January 16, 2026.
Congratulations to the following contributors:
- ~2025-38473-89 (Original author)
- Metropolitan90
- BigKrow
Year-end report
2025 performance data shows that publication output was primarily constrained by operational capacity rather than audience demand.
Periods with higher reviewer participation produced substantially more articles, fewer zero-day gaps, and stronger site traffic. When reviewer capacity declined midyear, output collapsed first, followed by delayed readership declines. Active editor participation influenced the maximum achievable output, but reviewer availability remained the dominant bottleneck during low-capacity periods. Audience demand remained strong throughout the year, as demonstrated by consistently high top-article engagement even during months with reduced publication volume.
Working hypothesis: Maintaining at least three active publishing reviewers and approximately ten active content editors per month is necessary to sustain publication volume, reduce zero-day gaps, and preserve long-term audience engagement.