User blog comment:Sannse/Blocking Best Practices/@comment-24901486-20121008234008/@comment-8-20121009161306

Another option is to let people edit ;)

As with blocking, the ideal is for protection to be used to prevent damage to the wiki. So if a page is being vandalized a lot, it's good to protect it. But it's also good for people to be able to edit and improve an article, so it's best for that protection to be just temporary.

Of course, different wikis have different rules, but that's the ideal :)