Help:Protected pages

Summary

Some Wikipedia pages are protected from editing to prevent vandalism. This protection status is usually shown as a padlock at the top right of the protected page. Its varying colours depend on the level of protection, which include:

  • Full protection
  • Semi-protection
  • Creation protection
  • Move protection
  • Upload protection
  • Extended-confirmed protection
  • Pending-changes protection

Only administrators and office staff are able to activate page protection.
For example, the Main Page of Wikipedia has permanent protection because of its high visibility, and many of the pages linked from it may also be protected. Note that the purpose of page protection is for protection against vandalism, and not for censorship reasons.