Stuck in between two sites...

I am in middle of a very interesting dilemma right now...
And yes, I didn't want this in the forum competitors thread...

I am a member of a forum. Been a registered member there for a little over a year, though I lurked since they opened 4 years ago. About 6 months ago, there was a slew of bannings and some of the members opened their owned site. things finally ground to a halt and there temporary peace. People got unbanned, etc. During this time period I was a staff member of site 1 and I joined site 2 because all the main contributors were there.

Things got real heated today, and about a week ago site 2 has on of its members re-banned. The member has seemed to make it his goal to take down site one. However, during the interim, I was brough abord site 2 as a technical admin (I was needed to help them move to vb4...) I also retired from site 1 temporary due to time issues.

Now that things got all heated, I have sorta got shoved in the middle. As a retired staff member on site 1, who may be coming back on soon (classes are ending), I have been informed that it hurts my image to be associated with site 2. Mind you, I did NOT have my name added to the admin group / display admin tags + colors, but I do show up in the showgroups and it is not a secret - just not openly visible. Keep in mind, I don't set policy, don't mod, just tech work. That is all! So only a few know I am staff at site 2.
Meanwhile site 2 wants me to get involved and support them...

I hate site politics so much and am looking for advise. Is there a middle ground? I enjoy doing the tech work, I also enjoyed being on staff at site 1. And from what i am getting, I must now pick...

 

I would like to make an intelligent comment, but cannot. These types of issues are difficult at best when knowing all the details in real life, using generic terms makes things like this impossible for me to comment on.


But my approach, in general, is to go associate myself with good people with good intentions.

Perhaps someone else has better input.

 

I stumbled on to this same basic situation my self. It's the craziest thing I ever seen, the owner of site started banning ANY of his members who joined site 2

 

i was in a similar situation and in the end i got banned from site 2 and eventually got promoted to mod, then admin of site 1.

this also happened between our forum (before i was admin, when it was owned by the current admin and the owner of site 2, before she destroyed the forum to remove the competition) and a forum i had been a member of for years. i stayed out of it and conmtinued posting on both, but didnt comment on any of the arguing.

 

It seems like you are not wanting to be on one site only, but the folks at Site 1 are drawing that line in the sand. It also appears that Site 1 has had issues in the past with bannings, unbannings, rebannings, etc. Seems volatile there. But it might have the better vibe as far as community goes.

You might have to decide which forum you think is going the right direction with the right momentum.

Are the folks at Site2 trying to force you to choose anything?

 

Not yet. I told them if they try to make me choose, I will leave. Since I do the tech work there, I am not to worried... yet.