Rotem Liss wrote:

mrzman@svn.wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Revision: 40723 Author: mrzman Date: 2008-09-11 03:50:53 +0000 (Thu, 11 Sep 2008)

Log Message:

(bug 15551) Show deletion log excerpts when a user follows a redlink, even if they can't edit the page.

Note that the deletion log excerpt was removed from the article page in r22856 [1].

[1] http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=22856

I was aware (though not of the actual revision). People seem to think this would be a good idea now, and I tend to agree.