Having commented on the great controversy of who changed the policy, I thought that I might comment on the best practice itself. This is taken from a recent post by me to [[Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#Listed for deletion notice]], so please reply there:
I'm strongly sympathetic to listing the deletion notices, but I understand that some people have objected to the practice (preferring to simply blank the page) on the grounds that:
1* Adding the notice more work than blanking the page. 2* A blanked page tells the software in various contexts that there's no content there.
My suggestion: Redirect to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, which explains everything! That page would need a little text at the top to explain the redirect, but the objections above are resolved:
1* Since you have to go to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion anyway to list the page, typing in the redirect (a little work) saves you work later (you can just click to get to VfD); 2* The software knows that redirects have no content.
So who has those objections, and do you think that a redirect would work better?
-- Toby