- When a page with Pending Changes (PC) protection is edited by an unregistered user or new user, that edit and all following edits by any user are not included in the article displayed to the general public (that is, for readers who are not logged in), until the edits are approved by someone with the "reviewer" user right. PC protection is intended to quash inappropriate editing while allowing good faith users to submit their edits for review.
- Reviewers are users with a similar level of trust to rollbackers (including all administrators) and the right can be granted and removed by any administrator. Reviewer rights are granted upon request at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions. Potential reviewers should recognize vandalism, be familiar with basic content policies such as the policy on living people, and have a reasonable level of experience editing Wikipedia. Reading the reviewing guideline, where the reviewing process and expectations for a reviewer are detailed, is recommended.
- Pending changes should be used on pages where the disruption to good-faith editing caused by existing protection tools would be disproportionate to the problem the protection seeks to resolve. Suitable issues for pending changes protection include persistent:
- Vandalism;
- Re-insertion of rumor, error, and NPOV/V/OR violations;
- Edit warring by large groups of unregistered users;
- Disruption by users on highly variable IPs.
- These standards are to be interpreted more liberally on biographies of living persons, or in any situation involving content related to living persons. As with other forms of protection, PC protection should not be used preemptively.
- As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should only be used in cases of severe long-term disruption.
- Like semi-protection, PC protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors at a disadvantage.