Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia ever created, is a global initiative driven by volunteer contributions. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and mobility restrictions ensued across the globe, it was unclear whether Wikipedia volunteers would become less active in the face of the pandemic, or whether they would rise to meet the increased demand for high-quality information despite the added stress inflicted by this crisis. Analyzing 223 million edits contributed from 2018 to 2020 across twelve Wikipedia language editions, we find that Wikipedia's global volunteer community responded remarkably to the pandemic, substantially increasing both productivity and the number of newcomers who joined the community. For example, contributions to the English Wikipedia increased by over 20% compared to the expectation derived from pre-pandemic data. Our work sheds light on the response of a global volunteer population to the COVID-19 crisis, providing valuable insights into the behavior of critical online communities under stress.

中文翻译：

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在COVID-19行动不便期间，对Wikipedia的自愿捐款有所增加

维基百科是有史以来最大的百科全书，是一项由志愿者贡献推动的全球倡议。当COVID-19大流行爆发并在全球范围内限制了流动性时，目前尚不清楚Wikipedia志愿者是否会在大流行面前变得不那么活跃，或者尽管满足了这些需求，他们是否会满足日益增长的对高质量信息的需求增加了这场危机带来的压力。通过分析2018年至2020年之间十二种Wikipedia语言版本的2.23亿次编辑，我们发现Wikipedia的全球志愿者社区对这一流行病做出了显着反应，从而大大提高了生产力并提高了加入该社区的新移民的数量。例如，与大流行前数据得出的预期相比，对英语维基百科的贡献增加了20％以上。