It has been discovered that the new system of cascading protection
(which protects any element transcluded in a page protected with the
cascade bit turned on) allows us to transclude and thus protect a
non-existent article.
Thus, we can effectively protect a deleted article without using the
horrible {{deletedarticle}} template. Users get a reasonably helpful
message telling them why it's not there, and it does not appear on
Random, does not appear in mirrors, does not show up at the top of the
Google hits (which will please the foiled vanity spammers as well as
allowing us to be kind to them). I can't think of a downside offhand.
Guy (JzG)
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http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG