Is it appropriate to flag questions that should be protected?

Question

In the past, here and on other SE sites, I flagged many times to protect some questions that I think they should be. Every time, it's ended fine.

In every case, question

1. has attracted a lot a viewers in the past (10k+)
2. has been reactivated recently
3. has a lot of "poor" answers from new users

Today, I flagged a question with a lot of views, a nice answer, but with 3 bad answers (one has been deleted since). This question was actived today. The flag's review was :

declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention

Is it appropriate to flag questions that should be protected ?

In other words, does this kind of situation need a moderator's intervention ?

Answer 1

That question only has one new answer in any recent sense and one deleted answer. The point of protection is to keep questions that have already gotten a bunch of "me too" or non-answers - it is intended to be reactive to a problem rather than proactive, as it eliminates the possibility of a new user being able to come in and post an awesome answer.

In general, if you see a question that's attracting a lot of non answers or "I have this problem too" sorts of stuff, flag it for protection. (Although there is a point after a certain number of deleted answers that a question will be auto-protected by the Community user.)

If it's just something you think might reach that point but actually hasn't, then maybe keep an eye on it (or trust the community will catch it).

In short - we don't really preemptively protect questions, as it restricts the possibility for new users to jump in with insights.