User blog comment:Sannse/Your First Look at the New Wikia/@comment-1582731-20100830095931

I feel it's disrespectful of the enormous amount of time and effort people have put into existing wikis. This is just a recipe for broken and abandoned wikis, I've seen it happen at other big sites, it would be a shame to see it happen here too, where site design leaves content in the dust and people come for content, not design.

Providing people options and tools is great and very appreciated. Forced marches to places people don't want to go, not so much.

Why make it mandatory? Because if we actually got to choose whether or not to use it, hardly anyone would. Let's be frank. If you don't have the resources to support existing skins plus the new skin, then you don't have the resources to add a new skin. If it means hiring a new person so you can split up the support by skin, and you can't afford that, then you shouldn't do this. But now you have the sunk cost effect, where you've put lots of effort into the new skin, and even if it means hurting yourself (and us) far more in the long run, you won't be able to walk away from it. Human psychology sucks.