I also had a fairly similar situation to Tonto here, having read the thread initially but not being active for a week or so to actually post before things spiralled somewhat. But onwards I go with the opinions...
I've already commented on my (one of only a few) in-game interaction in your request thread (here, for AD and others who couldn't find it) and it still doesn't appear to have changed much - very fleeting events which leave people confused as to what you do and/or are doing at the time.
I knew about the ex-admin thing but never really viewed it as a problem nor as indication that you were trying to take over the server or anything. Clearly you did think it was a problem though, hence the decision to hide it (although not too well, since a fair few knew, although I cannot remember how I found out). It might go some way in explaining what I've seen of some members.
As a couple have said here, Judges are a mixed bag of players as with any faction. Tonto is fairly reasonable and has been here, Alpha I've found pretty friendly. You have some of the... 'less articulated' guys would be a way of saying it (although there are of course those outside the faction too) who jump into threads in a rather hostile manner when faced with criticism. Then there is your leader, Logan, who has plenty of articulation and can write a good story, but in almost every post I've seen has shown an attitude that draws a lot of dislike from many. This attitude also includes what seems to be a sense of entitlement, and maybe that is from having been in a position of power elsewhere. Maybe when you have control over the rules somewhere else, you aren't used to some rules and other aspects here, and if people are against you then it must be ooRP grudges, bias, metagaming and everyone ganging up on you.
This would be fine as an RP point alone (e.g. whatever I may think of him, West does play the proud and obstinate KNF officer character very well), although with the accepted lore instead of the attempted retcons going on here it is rather strange.
A good example would be Logan's story about them travelling to meet some ancient universal figure (I enjoyed it when I read it a few months ago, echoing what Jamie said), which started with a fairly mundane mention of the Unioners. A band of greedy pirates who don't really care about anything than their own gains at the expense of the Rheinland government, and yet they execute their own pilots for attacking Judges, who are supposed to be the paragons of justice in the Sector and likely a perfect enemy for the Unioners.
All seems rather strange to me even with the suspension of belief when it comes to the Judges' proposed history. Then again, it might be the same problem that many of us don't know what you think you are as a group.
As has been stated before, we're looking for quality over quantity when it comes to RP. You've heard it many times that you need to interact fully with others more often than you have been. Coming from another position on another server again might have a hand in that.
However, I'll come from this at a different angle:
You have been taking in a lot of new players given your location and rather intensive initiation and training schedule system. Helping them out and doing some teaching would be good, but that largely depends on the quality of the lesson; a bad habit taught early can be hard to remove later on. Getting out and about with a helping hand is what they need, not being shut into a fairly insular faction that has tried to force itself into the lore in a non-fitting fashion, away from most other interactions. For a faction that spends so much time practising you really don't seem to be that great at fighting in general. While that isn't really a factor in weighing up your faction's merits and I don't think that it is perfectly analogous between teaching PvP and RP, a mentor with a more rounded Disco experience would be better for a newer player.
Maybe some of you could have done with that when you came here at first. I guess I just got lucky in finding a few decent people to learn from when starting out (exactly a year ago, coincidentally enough). Even if I did do a lot of work on my own initiative before joining and since then.
Black, there's no real need to post too many RAW forum links...
