You can make the case for increasing the number of edits (although I doubt there's really that much of an effect; anyone who has to visit the Wikipedia page to

You can make the case for increasing the number of edits (although I doubt there's really that much of an effect; anyone who has to visit the Wikipedia page to find out about the person just died isn't likely to be someone who already has a vested interest in putting some information on that page), but my comment was arguing against the idea that the article length would increase (beyond the small amount of text regarding the celebrity's death).