Help:Protected pages

A protected page is a page where normal users are prevented from editing and/or moving at all. Only a user with sysop permissions can edit or move a protected page. Files can also be protected from uploading, editing, or moving. Files might be protected because they are very highly used, but they are the only type of pages which can be protected from uploading, as they are the only types of pages that are made through uploading. Likewise, only sysop users can protect a page in the first place, or unprotect the page to lift the restriction.

Protection levels
There are 2 protection levels on this Wiki: autoconfirmed and sysop.

Autoconfirmed
At the autoconfirmed level, anybody who's an autoconfirmed user or any rank higher than it can edit/move the page. On this wiki, since only registered users can edit, this is more for intimidative effect than for actual practical use (as protected pages display a banner at the top that warns users that the page is protected when editing).

Sysop
At the sysop level, only sysops (meaning administrators) can edit/move the page.

Reasons for protection
There are several reasons why a particular page might be protected:
 * On public wikis, pages may be protected because they have been repeatedly targeted with vandalism or moved to bad titles, or where it is believed that vandalism or page moves would have an unusually severe impact.
 * On corporate wikis, pages may be protected when they contain statements which have been approved by management, and policy dictates that those statements can not be changed without following a certain approval process.
 * High traffic pages, some pages that are very highly visited, such as the main page on a certain wiki, would most likely be protected.

Page protection limits collaboration on the wiki content, and should be avoided where possible.