I can assure you anyone here suggesting to a ED fan to "drink bleach" or "go jump off a cliff" would be banned on the spot. And at least to my knowledge this hasn't happened. It's been documented the other way around however. Similarly, people who voiced criticisms about things like the promised feature set or the date of delivery (which all turned out to be accurate by the way) have been heckled, insulted and even threatened and/or doxxed.
I agree that some posts here could be a bit less direct, and I include myself in the list of people who should perhaps be a bit more diplomatic at times.
Also you'll note that there's some pretty vocal criticism about Elite in this very forum. Criticizing the way CIG has been conducting the development of SC on the SC forums however is a surefire way to have the topic locked and infractions or bans being put on your user account.
Frankly, I'm tired of videos of the current baby-PU and people "having so much fun in it". It's great that you enjoy it, and if you do then more power to you. Just don't claim it's the best thing since sliced bread, or try to tout virtues that it objectively doesn't live up to. I really enjoy playing "Megaman 8 bit deathmatch" online, but I'll be damned if I run around claiming that it's the best first person shooter ever. Many of the snarky reactions are directly related to such bold claims, along with the incessant hype being thrown around still.
I heavily criticise SC, CiG and the lack of community management on a daily basis on Spectrum, I'm usually upvoted for the comments with nary a suggestion to go drink bleach. I've also never read any of these comments outside of the clickbait media furore after one guy asked for a refund, usually quoted from reddit....that place is full of silly hateful little people in my experience and I avoid it like a plague as I've mentioned.
I've also said often enough, I've never in my opinion, stated any blatant falsehoods about SC, here or anywhere else. My having fun playing it...as is Bob's or Calrissian's is entirely subjective...being told I can't possibly have fun because I didn't supply relevant video evidence is not...some folks have 'fun' playing golf...I'd rather shove live wasps up my bum than hack at a tiny white ball all day with a stick then chase it around a posh looking field with flags on it...but I don't require empirical evidence that some hapless eejits actually enjoy the pointless process. This isn't a court of enquiry, it's a discussion forum where I assumed the whole point of adding commentary was to promote healthy discussion, not to provide material for a criminal dissection of possible or implied intent.
I'm perfectly aware...as I've said repeatedly...the PU is what it is, it's a buggy and laggy mess with very little to do in it for the 7 months it's been stagnated waiting on the magical patch 3.0 to give us all something new to try out....yet I'm still viewed as one step up from a base Cult of Roberts troll since I'm relatively new to this section of the forum...my forum ranking would at least suggest I've been around a bit and had some rep in the E-D sections, making the notion of me being some random and anonymous SC cultist trying to sway the bitter and twisted around with some barely fabricated lies pure nonsense...
I would suggest reading through my posts on here...if I've made some newbie error and reported blatant falsehoods surrounding SC, it's development, it's CEO or it's community, please point them out, I'd love to read them and offer an explanation if not an apology.
Linky for Spectrum posts
