Thanks Lane -- I'm very happy that we were able to help with this project!

-Toby


On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:05 PM, Lane Rasberry <[email protected]>wrote:

> Hello Analytics list!
>
> I am following up on a thread I started in October 2013 in which I asked
> for guidance about framing claims on the popularity of Wikipedia's health
> content.
>  <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/analytics/2013-October/001085.html>
> Thank you all. With the help of your comments I got a feature article
> published in BMJ, the "British Medical Journal". Even though I did not
> engage you all in conversation I really put a lot of thought into
> everything you all wrote, and found the response very encouraging.
>
> In this article in various ways I said "Health content on Wikipedia is
> more requested and accessed than comparable information from most other
> sources." When I originally wrote to this board I asked for analytic
> backing to say this, and I appreciate the comments that I got. If anyone in
> the future would like to talk more about Wikipedia's health traffic then
> please post to this board and contact me or contact me and others through
> WikiProject Medicine on English Wikipedia. My article is "Wikipedia: what
> it is and why it matters for healthcare" and it can be accessed by those
> with a BMJ magazine subscription at the first link or through an
> alternative method in the second link.
> <http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g2478>
> <
> http://bluerasberry.com/2014/04/wikipedia-and-health-information-published-in-bmj/
> >
>
> I also wish to respond to the common concern that people ought not get
> their health information from Wikipedia, and I wanted to share with you all
> what I tell people when they ask me why I care about Wikipedia's health
> information. Wikipedia is an extremely popular source of health
> information, and it is also a source with quality problems. All other
> sources of health information are unpopular, and they may or may not have
> good quality. It is my opinion that it would be less expensive by orders of
> magnitude to improve the quality of Wikipedia's health information than it
> would be to increase the popularity and accessibility of any other source
> or health information to a level of accessibility comparable to Wikipedia.
> Right now the Wikimedia movement is not imagined as a public or global
> health movement, but I feel that there is something here and that analytics
> might be the argument on which to base a call to action.
>
> The request I originally expressed to this board still stands - I still
> would like whatever information might be available describing the audience
> accessing health content on Wikipedia, and I think comprehensive
> information would be appreciated in health more than anywhere else in a
> Wikimedia project.
>
> Thank you all, and thank you again if you commented months ago.
>
> yours,
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Jonathan Morgan <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Can I just say how geektastically awesome it is that we're having a
>> discussion about how to frame claims about Wikipedia's popularity? Now this
>> is what lists are FOR.
>>
>>  But in the interest of avoiding 
>> stasis<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(rhetoric)#Stasis>,
>> I also want to say to Lane: don't sweat the language too much ;) You're not
>> going to be spouting untruths or despoiling the brand if you say Wikipedia
>> is the, or one of the, highest trafficked websites in the world for health
>> info. Wikipedia researchers make claims like that frequently, and often
>> with less data to back it up than you're offering.
>>
>> Also, Lane: do you want someone to script up that pageview request? I
>> agree with Erik that using WP Med/WP Health categories will get you better
>> results. I've been on the hook for getting some similar data for
>> Biosthmores for about... 6 months now. I could work on it on my own time
>> some evening this week.
>>
>> - J
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 5:15 PM, Lars Aronsson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/04/2013 11:39 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Search engines increasingly lead people to Wikipedia, which is one of
>>>> the factors in making Wikipedia the single highest traffic source of health
>>>> information in the world."
>>>>
>>>
>>> I can search for images, but only when they have words
>>> associated with them, e.g. descriptions, tags or categories.
>>>
>>> In this sense, doctors examining a patient and giving them
>>> a diagnosis is similar to tagging an image. Suddenly, the
>>> illness that this patient felt becomes possible to search.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>   Lars Aronsson ([email protected])
>>>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Analytics mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan T. Morgan
>> Learning Strategist
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Analytics mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
> 206.801.0814
> [email protected]
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Jonathan Morgan <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Can I just say how geektastically awesome it is that we're having a
>> discussion about how to frame claims about Wikipedia's popularity? Now this
>> is what lists are FOR.
>>
>>  But in the interest of avoiding 
>> stasis<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(rhetoric)#Stasis>,
>> I also want to say to Lane: don't sweat the language too much ;) You're not
>> going to be spouting untruths or despoiling the brand if you say Wikipedia
>> is the, or one of the, highest trafficked websites in the world for health
>> info. Wikipedia researchers make claims like that frequently, and often
>> with less data to back it up than you're offering.
>>
>> Also, Lane: do you want someone to script up that pageview request? I
>> agree with Erik that using WP Med/WP Health categories will get you better
>> results. I've been on the hook for getting some similar data for
>> Biosthmores for about... 6 months now. I could work on it on my own time
>> some evening this week.
>>
>> - J
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 5:15 PM, Lars Aronsson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/04/2013 11:39 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Search engines increasingly lead people to Wikipedia, which is one of
>>>> the factors in making Wikipedia the single highest traffic source of health
>>>> information in the world."
>>>>
>>>
>>> I can search for images, but only when they have words
>>> associated with them, e.g. descriptions, tags or categories.
>>>
>>> In this sense, doctors examining a patient and giving them
>>> a diagnosis is similar to tagging an image. Suddenly, the
>>> illness that this patient felt becomes possible to search.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>   Lars Aronsson ([email protected])
>>>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Analytics mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan T. Morgan
>> Learning Strategist
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Analytics mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
> 206.801.0814
> [email protected]
>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
> 206.801.0814
> [email protected]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>
>
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