Why can't I protect this question?

Question

Is there an English equivalent to "Do not expose others' misdeeds"? was recently bumped, and as I would consider at least three of the eight answers to be subpar, I thought to protect it in line with When is a member expected to protect a question? and Is the "protected" question tool overused?

There is no such option, however, just

The question was asked and last edited on February 11, so it is not the 24-hour limit. I don't know if protection/unprotection is logged, but there is no indication of any past actions in the edit log that might have locked its status. I am a 15K user and so far as I know, not under any disciplinary restriction that would have suspended that privilege. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

This is a recent feature change:

We recently implemented a change to protected questions based on the suggestion by Robert with a few modifications. 15k users will still be able to protect but in order to do so the question must have at least one answer by a new user aka a user with < 10 rep on the site (which is the required rep limit to answer protected questions).

If the question does not have an answer meeting this requirement, then the protect option will not be available.

The question you linked has one answer by a new user, but that user then earned 10 reputation points... for that answer.

Hypothetically speaking, if that answer was downvoted, the user would drop to 109 points, and (I think) you would be able to protect the question.

After all, if an answer is something that should be prevented from being posted, then it's certainly worth downvoting.

(Again, this is hypothetical; I did not attempt to evaluate said answer.)