Pete Forsyth (Wiki Strategies) and Lane Rasberry (Consumer Reports) present on the value of Wikipedia as an outreach tool in health communication. Follow on Twitter: @PeteForsyth @LaneRasberry. Originally presented to Lisa Gualtieri's class, Digital Strategies for Health Communication, at the Tufts University School of Medicine, 2013. #TUSM

1. Who is going to Wikipedia
for health information?
Pete Forsyth
Principal,
Wiki Strategies
pete@wikistrategies.net
W User:Peteforsyth
Lane Rasberry
Wikipedian in Residence,
Consumer Reports
lrasberry@consumer.org
W User:Bluerasberry

2. Where did Wikipedia come from?
● Wiki software invented in 1990s
● Wikipedia founded in 2001, as experiment
● Hundreds of thousands of volunteers,
inspired by a shared vision:
Imagine a world in which every
single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge.

3. Why is Wikipedia important?
● Fifth most visited web property worldwide
● Rare among the top 100 sites:
○ volunteer-driven project (only other - archive.org)
○ non-profit (only others - archive.org and BBC)
● Most widely read publication in history (?)
● Sophisticated decision-making model
● Anyone may participate

4. How does it work?
Wikipedia's principal software functions:

5. How can organizations engage with
Wikipedia?
● With a clearly expressed dedication to
Wikipedia's values, policies, and norms
● Transparently
● With an open mind and a giving spirit

6. What organizations have benefited
from Wikipedia-related projects?
● Museums, libraries, archives:
updating practices and reaching new audiences
● Philanthropic foundations:
improving coverage of topics related to program areas
● Academic and professional societies:
fulfilling responsibilities to their disciplines
● For-profit companies:
improving accuracy and breadth of their own coverage*

7. Why are people going to Google for
health information?

8. Does Google matter?
Does online media matter?
Alexa Rank (readership) & revenue for 2011-
12:
1. Facebook
2. Google
6. Wikipedia
10. Twitter
$5,100 million
50,180 million
28 million
350 million

9. You can check any article's traffic!
1. Click "View history"!
1.

10. 2. Click "page view statistics"!
2.

11. Does this monthly traffic mean
anything to you? 130k, June 2013

12. Who is responsible for
ensuring that Google's
health results are
accurate and useful?
Google? The government? Health
organizations? Volunteers? No one?

13. My offer to you
Who wants to
communicate through the
top Google results, for
free, right now with 15
minutes of work?

14. The catch - Wikipedia has its own
rules:
● Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
● It is written from a neutral point of view
● It offers free content that anyone
can use, edit, modify, or redistribute
● Editors should treat each other with respect
and civility.
● There are no firm rules.

15. My advice to organizations -
1. No advertising
2. Citations for every statement
3. Respond to feedback
4. Join the community

16. Are you still with me?
Then consider your
community!
● Wikiprojects
● established editors
● personal online
training
● better human
response to
questions than any
bank
● cool people

17. Let's tour the health community!
Wikipedia has
23,000 health
articles.
2,000 have been
evaluated as
rather good. All
need work.

18. Volunteers meet and do things!
type WP:MED into Wikipedia's search box

19. Is Wikipedia a popular source of
health information?

20. To what extent is health content
development like anything else?
Some services like the
Teahouse and other training
support is for everyone. Some
things, like guidelines on
"Reliable sources for
medicine", are specific.
Type WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:
MEDRS into search

21. Example project - Choosing Wisely
● Organizations
which want to do
health education
consider Wikipedia
● What were the
costs and benefits?
● What could and
could not be done?

22. How is it that someone
comes to access the
Wikipedia article on
electrocardiogram?
One theory - went to Google and misspelled
"Bieber"

23. Choosing Wisely impact through
Wikipedia -
Three month impact and beyond -
● 60 articles received Choosing Wisely content
● Traffic to those articles - 11 million
● complaints - several had to be addressed!
● no fame, no self-promotion - what do
readers really want?
● content was stable at 3 months
● at six month check, all content remained and
traffic went up

24. Consider this class's collaboration!
● Is your goal to
share health info?
● Is your goal to
promote the org?
● To what extent are
these goals
exclusive?
● What are your
options?
Who is your
audience?

25. When should you make a decision
about responding to Wikipedia?
Wikipedia might be a fad!
Text on the Internet may go obsolete!

26. What options do you have?
Any of these!
● Begin to consider Wikipedia traffic
● Look at article traffic on Wikipedia
● Share sources on Wikipedia talk pages
● Consider whether any Wikipedia article
matters during outreach campaigns
● Convince other people, like students, to edit
Wikipedia
● You are welcome to edit anything yourself!

27. Why are people going to
Wikipedia for health
information?
Pete Forsyth
Principal,
Wiki Strategies
pete@wikistrategies.net
W User:Peteforsyth
Lane Rasberry
Wikipedian in Residence,
Consumer Reports
lrasberry@consumer.org
W User:Bluerasberry