Gunna jump in here as the premise of the OP is actually pretty spot on. (If you’ve recently looked at this particular post on Steam, you’ll see that I’ve responded).
If someone posts a feedback thread (even if the general tone seems abrupt or even rude), it’s hugely important to ensure community responses are polite. Debate the feedback by all means, but always appreciate these are peoples opinions; the best we can do is read them and respond in a friendly manner. When myself and James read through this particular thread, we both agreed with quite a few points, but we need these posts to stay constructive so we can see how others feel about it - we don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable about letting us know their feelings towards the game.
If however, someone has posted a thread which contains incorrect information, by all means correct them (again, polite is the key word here), but also try to understand what caused the person to think this way. The likelihood is that the game isn’t communicating something well enough, which is something we can resolve.
With regards to responding to reviews, you’ll occasionally see me respond to one. I usually pick reviews which I think have been relatively well thought out, and provide a few reasons as to why the reviewer feels the way they do. That way, I can ask for a follow up on a few points and start a conversation about it. Of course, if the review just says “Game sucks”, I wouldn’t reply as it’s unlikely to lead anywhere.
I’m gunna hit a truth bomb right here so brace yourselves…
When I look at the Steam forums, I do not see the same fantastic community as I do when I look here. I see a few negative posts which are bumped up every day because someone wants to defend the game they love; but sometimes, this can reflect badly on the playerbase (you may have seen my most hated word used on the forum quite recently… “Toxic” shudder).
Everyone has the right to defend something they love, of course! But you can defend it even better if you look past the negativity in threads and respond to the point.
I’ve come from a heavily PvP focused game, I’ve seen how quickly a thread can turn into flames. It usually starts with a new player putting an opinion out there and coming across a little rude, then all it takes is one existing player to respond negatively for the whole thing to go down in flames.
A couple of years ago when I first bought Boundless, I said multiple times “this is the best community I’ve ever been a part of”, and it still is. All we need to do, is spread that over to the other Boundless social channels. It starts with being polite to everyone, no matter how negative their first post was.