It appears you were banned by Steam Support - if you check your Community Messages, you'll see at the top:

Ban notification from a member of Steam Support

I agree your post shouldn't have warranted a ban. Could've been nicer, but we wouldn't have banned for it.

Originally posted by Celtic Dragon:

Originally posted by Fatshark Julia: It appears you were banned by Steam Support - if you check your Community Messages, you'll see at the top:

I agree your post shouldn't have warranted a ban. Could've been nicer, but we wouldn't have banned for it.

Can't help but notice the convenience letting 3rd party admins handle your forums with their own rules creates for the question of responsibility for actions taken.

I mean, that's simply what Steam do. It's not something we have any control over.

Originally posted by Celtic Dragon:

Originally posted by BAD RAT:
That doesn't make any sense. FS, like any other developer, uses the forum platform provided by Steam and therefore has to abide by the guidelines they're given. It also means that you can be reported straight to Steam and also banned directly by Steam.

And it sets a precedent where criticism can be censored by Steam admins like in my case, and the devs/publisher the criticism was directed at just shrugging it off claiming it wasn't their responsibility.

Who do you hold responsible for the censorship then? The company will blame Steam admins and Steam admins will claim no incentive to censor criticism, while doing it anyway.

But you weren't banned for criticism of our product, you were banned for calling somebody's post dumb. There's no censorship of criticism involved. Steam's reasoning for the ban:

When using the “Steam Discussions”, please ensure your post is relevant, constructive and polite – act with decorum

Like I said before, I don't believe a ban was warranted in this situation but please don't assume we're censoring criticism. Criticise away, but keep it constructive!