A protected page can only be edited by sysops or bureaucrats. Pages are protected in order to prevent vandalism (in the case of pages with high visibility or legal information) or to highly regulate edits (as in the case of professionals).
Pages should typically be protected under one or more the following circumstances:
- if there is no reasonable reason for a regular user to be modifying such a page (such as the privacy policy or copyright page)
- if a page is of particularly high visibility (mainly the Main Page)
- if a page's unauthorized modification would have a particularly damaging or undesirable effect
In addition, a user's user page and talk page may be protected if that user is blocked from editing, although this should be generally avoided unless it is thought that the user would abuse his ability to continue to edit his own user and talk pages. (Please note that users who are banned from the forums are unable to edit the wiki at all.)