  The 2020 coronavirus pandemic was a historic social disruption with
significant consequences felt around the globe. Wikipedia is a
freely-available, peer-produced encyclopedia with a remarkable ability to
create and revise content following current events. Using 973,940 revisions
from 134,337 editors to 4,238 articles, this study examines the dynamics of the
English Wikipedia's response to the coronavirus pandemic through the first five
months of 2020 as a "quantitative portrait" describing the emergent
collaborative behavior at three levels of analysis: article revision, editor
contributions, and network dynamics. Across multiple data sources, quantitative
methods, and levels of analysis, we find four consistent themes characterizing
Wikipedia's unique large-scale, high-tempo, and temporary online
collaborations: external events as drivers of activity, spillovers of activity,
complex patterns of editor engagement, and the shadows of the future. In light
of increasing concerns about online social platforms' abilities to govern the
conduct and content of their users, we identify implications from Wikipedia's
coronavirus collaborations for improving the resilience of socio-technical
systems during a crisis.
