From StrategyWiki, the free strategy guide and walkthrough wiki

Protected pages on StrategyWiki are generally classified as being editable by administrators alone. These pages are protected to prevent vandalism or mistaken editing. A few examples are as follows:

• High-visibility pages such as the main page
• The page is an official StrategyWiki guideline or important in some other way and should not be frequently edited
• Pages including legal texts
• Universally used templates
• Articles that spark rivalry or are targets of fanboy raids
• The page/article has been heavily and/or frequently vandalized and has been locked to prevent further damage
• The article has been the site of a flame war and has been locked down in order to stop the violence
• The page/article is of a controversial nature and has been locked to prevent vandalism or adverse editing

With the exclusion of the above, most pages are never meant to be protected.

[edit] Editing protected pages

Protected pages are special in nature and must be handled on a case-by-case basis, so always be mindful of this when editing them. Editing high-visibility pages such as the main page are usually required for changing presentation, and these edits require little thought other than to check your markup, spelling, and grammar. When editing policy pages, be sure that your edits are authorized or the result of a consensus vote. Be aware that editing widely-used templates can affect many pages on the wiki, so always anticipate what the result will be and ensure you discuss major changes. Check and double check. Finally, never edit legal texts or licenses unless it is absolutely necessary.

[edit] Semi-protected pages

Semi-protected pages disallow anonymous and newly registered users from editing. To edit these pages as a new user, you must become autoconfirmed by meeting both of these criteria:

• Wait 4 days after registering.
• Make a minimum of 10 edits.