<rant>
Why in the heck is this thread still going on?
Have people lost all common sense and decency? You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Deletion of pages through the "delete page" function as we have it currently *is* unwiki, because only a relatively small number of people can do it, and only a relatively small number of people can undo it. As long as that state of affairs exists (VOLUNTEERS TO RECODE THE DELETION SYSTEM ARE WELCOME) it is only polite to make reasonable efforts to notify people[1] that pages are under consideration for deletion by putting a note *on* the page in question.
[1] The 'original author' is not the only person who needs to be notified. People stumbling upon the article by accident who may be interested in fixing or expanding it would certainly be interested to discover that someone was planning to disappear it.
Now remember, just because mav says you "must" do something doesn't mean you'll be arrested, jailed, tortured, or banned for doing it. That's just his opinion on proper protocol.
And I think it's a fine one in this case.
</rant>
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)