What (if anything) is the present consensus on including (short) PD
texts in
the 'pedia. I'm thinking of http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
This is not an answer to your question, just a reflexion: At some point, the titles of such texts will "pollute" the name space of Wikipedia. For example, should [[The Raven]] be the poem and [[Raven]] be a description of the bird? Should [[U.S. Constitution]] be a text about the constitution or the text of the constitution? To some extent, titles of works are a namespace of their own.
How about adding (source text) behind them, like [[Grundgesetz (Quellentext)]] in the German WP. I don't know what the benefit of a separate namespace would be, but it will not hurt either.
I don't think a protection is needed for these text, it would be enough to make them a bit more eye catching on the RecentChanges page, so that it doesn't take 5 minutes but only 2 until vandalism is restored (just guessing). And maybe some kind of consensus that editings of these text have to be explained on Talk: - I'm thinking of translation corrections here. It should also be possible to wikify the texts.
But I also agree that WP isn't the right place to store large texts - at the moment.
Bye, Kurt