Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages such that they cannot be edited, or images so that they can not be overwritten, except by other administrators. This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances as protected pages are considered harmful.

See also: Requests for page protection, Protection log, List of protected pages, Ireland Information Guide:This page is protected

Why

A semi-permanent protection is used for:

• Protecting high visibility pages such as the Main Page from vandalism.
• Maintaining the integrity of the site's logo.
• Maintaining the integrity of key copyright and license pages.
• Maintaining the integrity of past press releases.
• Protecting certain "system administration" pages.
• Protecting the often-used texts in the MediaWiki namespace.
• User pages and their subpages that are subject to repeated vandalism.

A temporary protection is used for:

• Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war," upon request.
• Protecting a page or image that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
• Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug in the MediaWiki software.

The protection of a page on any particular version is not meant to express support for that version and requests should therefore not be made that the protected version be reverted to a different one.

Talk pages and user talk pages are not protected except in extreme circumstances.

How

1. Do not edit or revert a temporarily protected page except to add a protected page notice, a link to Ireland Information Guide:Accuracy dispute or Ireland Information Guide:NPOV dispute, or a similar disclaimer about the current state of an article, unless there is widespread agreement that the page was protected in violation of these policies.
2. Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over.
3. Add {{protected}} (or {{vprotected}} for vandalism) to the top of the temporarily protected page and make mention of the protection in the edit summary
4. List pages you protect on Ireland Information Guide:Protected page
5. Consider encouraging a resolution between the disputing parties
6. Remove {{protected}} from the top of an unprotected page and make mention of the removal in the edit summary

Admins should not protect pages which they have been involved with (involvement includes making substantive edits to the page or expressing opinions about the article on the talk page). Admin powers are not editor privileges - admins should only act as servants to the user community at large. If you are an admin and you want a page in an edit war in which you are somehow involved to be protected, you should contact another admin and ask them to protect the page for you.

In addition, admins should avoid favoring one version of the article over another, unless one version is vandalism. In this case, the protecting sysop may choose to protect the non-vandalism version.

Additionally, when protection is due to a revert war, the protecting sysop may choose to protect the version favoured by those more closely complying with the guideline on repeated reverts. See Ireland Information Guide talk:revert#The protection option for the discussion on this.

In general, temporarily protected pages should not be left protected for very long, and discussion pages should be left open.

Editing protected pages

The policy on not editing a protected page does not apply in the same way to the semi-permanently protected pages. For these pages, admins must be cautious about editing and do so in accordance with consensus and any specific guidelines on the subject. In some cases, such as when an edit is a major change to an important page and likely to be viewed as controversial, sysops should consider first raising the issue on the relevant talk page.

In cases of temporary page protection, admins should not edit the page while it is protected as people with different points of view who are not admins are unable to do so. There are, however, a few times when admins may cautiously decide to edit such a page:

• Adding a link to Ireland Information Guide:accuracy dispute or Ireland Information Guide:NPOV dispute, or a similar disclaimer about the current state of an article.
• Reverting to an old version of the page from a week or so before the controversy started if there is a clear point before the controversy.
• Reverting to a favored version, as described above.

List of protected pages

If you protect a page, or find a protected page not listed on Ireland Information Guide:Protected page, please add it to the list. Please also add a short description of ten words or fewer indicating why you protected it. If you need to say more, discuss on the talk page of the page you protected.