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 <lane(a)bluerasberry.com>wrote;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-…
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 <jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;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>is>,
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 <lars(a)aronsson.se> 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 (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
--
Jonathan T. Morgan
Learning Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Jonathan Morgan <jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;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>is>,
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 <lars(a)aronsson.se> 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 (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
--
Jonathan T. Morgan
Learning Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics