Wikipedia:Protection policy

This page documents an English Wikipedia policy. It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts WP:PP WP:PROTECT

This page in a nutshell: While Wikipedia strives to be as open as possible, sometimes it is necessary to limit editing of certain pages in order to prevent vandalism, edit warring, or other disruptive edits.

Protection icons

Icon	Mode
White	Pending changes protected
Silver	Semi-protected
Blue	Extended confirmed protected
Pink	Template-protected
Gold	Fully protected
Red	Interface protected
Green	Move protected
Skyblue	Create protected
Purple	Upload protected
Turquoise	Cascade protected
Black	Protected by Office

In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit and therefore aims to have as many pages as possible open for public editing so that anyone can add material and correct errors. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection and when each protection should and should not be applied.

Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels of protection are detailed below, and they can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the source code (wikitext) of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone.

A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template.