Almost every page here can be edited by anybody, including people without an account. Protection is the exception: it restricts editing on a particular page, and it is applied to pages that attract damage rather than as a general precaution.
| Level | Who may edit | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Unprotected | Everyone, including logged-out editors | The default, and the great majority of pages |
| Semi-protected | Autoconfirmed accounts | Pages under repeated anonymous vandalism |
| Extended-confirmed | Accounts with 30 days and 500 edits | Long-running disputes on contentious subjects |
| Fully protected | Administrators only | The Main Page, and pages in the middle of an edit war |
Protection is set by an administrator and may be indefinite or set to expire. Special:ProtectedPages lists every protected page, why, and who protected it.
It never stops anyone reading a page, and it never stops anyone asking for a change. Every protected page still has a discussion, and a request made there will be seen by someone who can make the edit. If you cannot edit a page, that is the route.
Some pages use pending-changes review instead of protection. Anyone can edit them, and the edit is saved at once and appears in the page history, but logged-out readers keep seeing the last reviewed version until a reviewer accepts the change. It is a lighter tool than semi-protection: it keeps the page open to everybody while keeping unchecked material off the version most people see.
Special:PendingChanges lists the pages using it and what is waiting.
Raise it on the page's discussion, or on OpenWiki:Community portal. Protection is meant to be temporary wherever it can be: a page protected because of a burst of vandalism should be unprotected once the burst is over.