On 2014 May 30, Lane Rasberry commented:

The author says, "This study is unique in that it is the first scientific investigation, to the authors' knowledge, into the harnessing of Wikipedia usage data over time to estimate the burden of disease in a population." Yes, this is unique, and the Wikipedia community struggles to manage responsibility for what to do with the tremendous amount of traffic data the site creates. As the paper says, WP:STATISTICS is a description on Wikipedia of all the traffic on Wikipedia. A lot of privacy issues are still being sorted, but the community intent has always been to make as much information as ethically possible available to researchers.

It is encouraging to the community of Wikipedia editors to see a study like this because it confirms that when sources like Wikipedia make health information available to the public, then the public will spontaneously seek the same when the need arises and presumably use the information to inform the health decisions they make. It is more encouraging to think that this study was made possible because of Wikipedia's odd practice of making lots of visitor data available; of course commercial websites can never do this, but the public space of Wikipedia allows for novel research like this study.

This study sets precedent beyond the conclusions made from the research - in the Wikipedia community it has provoked discussion about the role of Wikipedia in serving public health.

On 2014 May 30, Lane Rasberry commented:

The author says, "This study is unique in that it is the first scientific investigation, to the authors' knowledge, into the harnessing of Wikipedia usage data over time to estimate the burden of disease in a population." Yes, this is unique, and the Wikipedia community struggles to manage responsibility for what to do with the tremendous amount of traffic data the site creates. As the paper says, WP:STATISTICS is a description on Wikipedia of all the traffic on Wikipedia. A lot of privacy issues are still being sorted, but the community intent has always been to make as much information as ethically possible available to researchers.

It is encouraging to the community of Wikipedia editors to see a study like this because it confirms that when sources like Wikipedia make health information available to the public, then the public will spontaneously seek the same when the need arises and presumably use the information to inform the health decisions they make. It is more encouraging to think that this study was made possible because of Wikipedia's odd practice of making lots of visitor data available; of course commercial websites can never do this, but the public space of Wikipedia allows for novel research like this study.

This study sets precedent beyond the conclusions made from the research - in the Wikipedia community it has provoked discussion about the role of Wikipedia in serving public health.