Wiktionary:Protected page guidelines

''This page is linked to whenever a protected page is edited. It should not be deleted.''

Introduction to protection
You may have come here from a link shown to you when you tried to edit a protected page, which cannot currently be edited. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause; we try to protect pages only where absolutely necessary, and to unprotect them as soon as possible.

With the exception of a few pages that are permanently protected, you will be able to edit the page when it is unprotected. In the meantime, please feel free to discuss the changes you want to make in the Tea Room. Thank you for your interest in Wiktionary.

Guidelines
Current policy restrictions on editing protected pages for sysops:


 * None, but it should be noted that unless there is good reason to protect a page, it should be unprotected. Unprotected is best, semi-protected is acceptable if necessary, and fully protected should be avoided unless the page is a high-profile static page, or a vandalism target.

Current guidelines and recommendations:


 * When making changes to a protected template page, please insert   or its equivalent on the main template page and move documentation and, surrounded by "includeonly" tags, categories and interwiki links to the documentation page.

Protected titles (pages that do not currently exist)
Wikimedia software allows protecting a page that does not exist, preventing its (re-)creation (by non-admins, or only by non-autoconfirmed users) if it is a likely target of vandalism, spamming, or other useless activity. There is also a page title blacklist that can block classes of page titles based on regular expressions. The special page Special:Protectedtitles lists the protections presently in force.
 * Guideline/recommendation: use this mechanism when pages are frequently inappropriately recreated. If the title is entirely bogus, set level to sysop/admin; if a page under the title is plausible, perhaps in another language or with citations, set level to autoconfirmed-only. Provide a rationale. Set a reasonable time limit on the protection.
 * To request unprotection if you want to create a page with valid content and are unable, ask an active administrator or post in a community discussion forum such as the WT:BP or WT:TR.