Thread:Kirkburn/@comment-39340968-20200206190645/@comment-126761-20200206230709

If you go to protect a page that has not been created yet, the only option is to prevent the page from being created.

To put this another way: if you use the 'protect' option on a page that exists you can prevent people editing it, but if you use the same option on a page that doesn't exist you can prevent people creating it.