Crisis documentation on Hebrew Wikipedia: revision dynamics and epistemic stabilization in wartime articles

Purpose This study examines how Hebrew Wikipedia documents wartime events as they unfold, focusing on the structural revision dynamics through which war articles are rapidly created, expanded, contested and provisionally stabilized. Design/methodology/approach Revision-level metadata from four Hebrew Wikipedia war articles created between 2021 and 2026 (N = 16,449; 30-day analytic sample n = 7,951) were analyzed using prespecified structural indicators of anonymous-like participation, editorial concentration, byte growth, pruning and archiving, conflict and source-oriented signaling. Findings All four articles experienced rapid growth during the first 14 days. Anonymous-like participation was front-loaded in two cases that included temporary accounts, but the cumulative top-editor share settled at a low equilibrium rather than increasing over time. Pruning and archiving were not observed within 30 days, formal stabilization remained inconclusive and source-oriented signaling did not predict lower next-day conflict. Research limitations/implications The metadata-only design, 30-day window and single language edition limit scope. Future work should extend the window, incorporate revision-text reference counts and replicate across other editions and conflict settings. Originality/value The study reframes wartime Wikipedia editing as a process of crisis documentation rather than as the production of finished article text alone. It shows that expansion, participation, concentration, conflict, sourcing and pruning unfold on different temporal horizons.