Any page on GTA Wiki can be protected from editing. When a page is protected, only administrators can edit it.
Pages are protected for one of three reasons:
- If the page is an important page, such as the Main Page, it cannot afford to be allowed to be vandalised, so should always be protected.
- If a page, image or template is transcluded (included) into a lot of other pages, any vandalism would affect a large proportion of the site, so these are often protected.
- If a page is repeatedly vandalised, then temporary or permanent protection can help stop that.
Any administrator can protect any page, except Special and MediaWiki namespaces. However, pages should only be protected when there is good reason. This site is a wiki, so having a lot of pages only editable by Staff defeats the object of community participation.
Users may request that their user page, or some of its subpages, be protected. A decision will be made on an individual basis as to whether this is appropriate.
The expiry time on a page is at the discretion of the Staff member applying the protection. If the vandalism is happening quite often on a large important article, such as Grand Theft Auto IV, the protection should probably be long-term. If the vandalism is only by one user, that user should be suspended or banned instead of the page being protected.