Michael Snow wrote:
Stable versions that feed into development versions, with the latter clearly identified as such (in David Gerard's words, 1995-style yellow and black "Under Construction" GIFs), would do quite a bit to defuse these problems, I think. In particular, I don't think the urge to delete would be nearly as strong, and the concern about harm to Wikipedia's image from be minimized. The time to provide stable versions has come.
Copyediting myself: "The concern about harm to Wikipedia's image from bad articles would be minimized."
--Michael Snow