Q:

Should we automatically protect all questions with more than N answers?

I was thinking, if a question has more than say 40 answers there is very little value in getting answer number 41. The chances of it floating to the top are slim. 
Does it make sense to automatically protect any question with more than N answers, so a user needs 10 reputation to answer them? (should that 10 number be increased?) 

A:

As was suggested by Shog9 the my question that I'm guessing caused this question to be asked - perhaps we need an option so only 10k or 3kers can answer. Mainly because they're smart enough to know that a question with 600 answers is not going to need another answer.
The idea being that if a 10ker (or a 3ker) feels that they have a valuable contribution to be made, they probably do. It's discrimination I know but someone with 120 rep probably doesn't have anything valuable to add to a question of that nature.

A:

Just lock 'em. Probably at 60 or 90 answers, so two or three pages are filled.
Maybe add a little note at the top of the question, something like, "This was an entertaining question, but there are now [two|three] pages of answers, and it is becoming difficult to effectively read and moderate the responses. If you feel you have something to add, consider editing one of the existing answers, or post a question on meta..."

