Is there a way we can suspend the protection and/or allow the new user to post her answer?
In general, protections can be undone by each user with 3500+ points (or a moderator). [The 3500 is current as long as we are in beta, on graduated sites it is 15k.] In some circumstances it can happen that it will soon be protected again by the community-user.
In the specific case I now merged the posts, which transfered the answer and this made the situation as if it was posted there right away.
I feel like if I were a new MESE and trying to join in on the site, as it appears MissC is, it would be frustrating to have something like this happen, and turn her off to the site.
This is certainly a valid concern. However, the very point of protecting a question is to prevent answers from new users. Thus, the question becomes: should we protect questions at all?
It is true that protection is mainly relevant while the questions is "hot" and possibly more relevant on larger sites. In view of this, I now unprotected this one. Let us see what (if anything) happens.
If you find a question that is protected and you think it should not be protected, feel free to raise a flag "other" giving this reason.
