I think I am one of those who have been implied by the calling out names on the staff etc. And yes I did and I would like to mention why I insist on it.
Let's try your way of putting things:
Nobody likes losing things and the new theme is a clear loss for the "Cadillac" sites. It doesn't help that some of the changes have revealed bugs in the framework. It really doesn't help that we are pushing forward even though many people strongly disliked aspects of the mockups.
OK why do you insist on a terrible design then? Did you explain why you chose this way of design where lots of users spent ridiculous times to tweak and polish over the years? That's a clean no. For clarity again, we are not loosing anything. It's just a website we enjoyed creating a community and we(not just me others have spent more than me) spent ridiculous amounts of time to fix the answers because of your internal mistake caused. What kind of help did you offer? Well read it yourself
Double backslashes disappear from code
Tens of users fixed it themselves by using Data.SE and going through writing scripts etc. which you could have done it in a few hours with the scripts that everyone else provided. So we know a thing or two how to handle the site ourselves thanks to your zero contribution.
Thus you might think that you are caring for the communities etc. but yeah let's skip that shall we?
I feel pretty strongly that insulting employees (particularly the designers who made the changes) is both counterproductive and morally wrong. Telling us we aren't listening seems unfair too.
It is really strange that you invoke the fairness cards. Over the years, we have continuously complained about imposing SO rules onto other sites. And the feedback we got is your last item. We do as we please. That's pretty fair indeed.
Then comes the fairer part. You told us that you are going to roll out a new theme and asked for feedback; there you go New TeX site theme coming soon
And what kind of response did we get? You discarded all and I repeat ALL feedback. Not a single thing mentioned there was applied. Now because of the negative feedback you are starting to fix things. TeX new site theme is live How is that really fair treatment? When it comes to appraisal and communities, we are all running towards the rainbows and unicorns hand-in-hand. And god forbid we disagree with you and suddenly we are ungrateful bastards. Again I'm choosing my words carefully. This is how you treat the communities and invoke fairness. Nice.
Lastly about the design, I am an average coder who does not code for living. I don't have massive skills and I don't really hang out in SE anymore. I was procrastinating during my PhD and after that, my engagement decayed rapidly. But even I know the difference between a frontend and a backend of a website. Currently numerous sites offer dynamic theming that can do incredible customizations. A couple of title bars and some arrows are really not the greatest challenges of human endeavor. The way you explain why you need these changes is quite an insult to all the experts' intelligence you host on SO. Your design team botched this and there is no sugarcoating available for it. You could have just accepted this and redesigned but no. You doubled down on it and now you are asking for empathy. That is not how it works.
Anyways, this is my first and hopefully last meta post so here is what you could have done in my opinion (not that it matters but otherwise we are called as whiners not providing any constructive alternatives).
If you want to introduce the title bar squashed down then you could have said so.
Folks, the title bar is going to shrink vertically do you have ideas on how to make it more personalized for the site. In the meantime site names are going to shift to the left. Make your own decals and we will incorporate them.
It is this simple. And I would have worked on it because despite all of your efforts I liked to hang out there for killing time. This is what you did
We are going to trim your title bar. Deal with it.
If you want to implement a left bar you could have said so
Folks, due to reasons that we cannot disclose we are going to implement a left side bar. We might add a background that will run down through the page for it for more personalized feel. Let us know what you think and offer yours.
And that stupid waste of space could be used for a bookmark type of personalization. Judging by what they are capable of worldbuilding and rgp (or rpg?) would have done wonders. What did you do instead?
New side bar is coming.
Well done indeed.
You could have waited until you finished the details or just mention them
Folks, we don't have yet a mechanism for custom arrows. So be prepared for some regression.
What did you do instead?
Arrows are generic now.
I can go on forever. Is this really how you want to play this fairness game? Please save it for the uninitiated.
I decided to leave not because of a design which is nothing but a look on a site. But the way you treat communities which made you what you are as if children whining all the time broke the camel's back.
