I stuck it out for several years. :P
I had some people who liked me, but with the exception of a few of them like Grif they were all either people I also know through OT or in RP's (and most of them aren't even on the new Guild :(). But community as a whole? It never changed, actually that's a lie. It got worse, I first came in at the lower end of popularity but could still float around and survive (even if there were some who hated me, Sole, Hank etc.). But whenever anything outside of random shit happened it would turn around the majority would get annoyed. Now I'm never one to simply listen to the crowd and change myself to be accepted, I've been picked on so much as a kid I've learned to take pride in the fact you won't get along with everyone. So essentially, because I kept staying as myself the originally below average view of me became a hated view of me. I never actually did anything wrong so Admins never got involved (To this day the admins on this site are some of the only admins I've seen that I actually like), but the community outright hated me. 

As for intelligent debate claim. It could be true, but it definitely is not a defining point of spam. And is not something nearly commonly (or unbias) enough for them to use as a legit argument when trying to compare spam to off topic.