The wording on the Protect Questions privilege page is confusing and would benefit from being clarified. See these questions on meta.SE and meta.SO.
Suggested wording from this answer is to replace this:
Which questions can be protected?
Any question, even a deleted question, can be protected and unprotected, subject to the following restrictions:
- The question must be at least a day old
- A user can unprotect any protected question
with the following:
Which questions can be protected?
Any question at least a day old, even a deleted question, can be protected and unprotected. A user with the privilege can unprotect any protected question.