JoelJCE I would go back and quote your posts but I lost track of where they were.
Unfortunately I don't have time to write a massive essay, even though I want to.
People started disagreeing with staff ever since the community opened. It's part of what people do, they bicker and argue.
However, the term "Corruption" started a bit before you joined the forums. Or at least, I started hearing it more around March or late February of 2013.
Have you ever heard the term, "The Summit"?
I don't know
exactly what happened during The Summit, or when it happened, but from what I've gathered in all my attempts to further understand it,
Col_StaR and some others wanted to try and eliminate what people called staff corruption in a series of peaceful meetings. People who attended were directly told that they would
not face consequences for anything they said during those meetings. I don't know who said that, but people believed it right away - which leads me to assume that it was a staff member who said that.
So naturally, they believed they had utter freedom of speech without worrying about getting banned. So people talked, and from what I heard, chaos ensued. But they wouldn't get banned, right? Ehh.. not so much. There were in fact several bans that went down, and some staff members resigned because of that.
After that meeting, players started doubting the staff a lot more. Within various clan chats, rumors spread about certain individual staff members and the staff as a whole, Admins were doubted, and overall discontent spread throughout the community.
It really didn't help that staff members stuck to the whole, "We will not discuss bans" rule. Yes, I understand that it's between the person and the Staff... but personally, I think there should be a point at which MCG decides, "Heck, fine. We'll give you what you want, and talk about the bans." Because by
not discussing them and saying, "Hey, look,
this person did something wrong - we were completely justified in our actions," things just get out of hand, and you come to what we have today - people trying to get other people demoted, and other people revolting like serfs from way back when.