On 31/01/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
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.
*pint* to Werdna!
(He's currently running for admin on RFA. There are those voting
against *because* he's a developer; I would have thought that would
have led to new features being particularly suited to administration
of the site. But presumably I am wrong.)
- d.