As an example, I started c/52weeksofbaking (copied over from reddit). Its a place for amateur bakers to challenge themselves, try new things, and share their successes and failures. There’s zero reason to downvote posts there. I stickied a request for people to not downvote in that community. It’s currently sitting at 20 upvotes and 18 downvotes.
We can make fun of people for caring about fake internet points, but if we want to get more people to use lemmy and create content, we need to create communities that feel welcoming.