Actual Discussion

IMHO, if you want an echo chamber then make a private community. Public spaces should be open to all, and banning used as a last resort - and even then only as a tool to force a "cooling off" period, so temporary bannings only (at least at first). People can just create another login to harass your group anyway, so permanent bans seem stupid & pointless. If someone just won't stop even after multiple month-long bans, then permaban if you wish, but they'll be back under another name out of resentment and anger.

Maybe Lemmy could use a "controversial commenter" flag - not sure if should be set by mods or voting history - which people could use to block threads from those types of people if they don't want to deal with such. This would allow those who want to debate to do so, and those who don't to choose to be oblivious of such discussion.

This has been an off the cuff response, so not thought out much. I expect to be destroyed for such stupid ideas, but hope they'll prompt some useful discussion.

for posting in our weekly threads here playing devil's advocate where I state hard questions that I do not necessarily feel are correct.

Please understand that the practice of playing devils advocate has never been to foster discussion. Whatever value it had has been completely obliterated in this misinformation age. Presenting flawed arguments as a rhetorical device is generally a waste of your audience's time at best. At worst it makes you appear to be an ignorant troll.

Are niche Communities correct for banning anyone who downvotes?

Contextually yes. If 1 person's downvotes represent a significant fraction of the total votes, and that person on average downvotes more than upvotes, I would argue a ban is appropriate because clearly that user does not enjoy engaging the content posted.

Do downvotes represent a "disagree" button for you (this Community notwithstanding)?

Always has been.

Most importantly, what would it take to change this?

Nothing. It's not a problem.

Does it help build the Community? What about the platform as a whole?

Ever heard of the Knights of New? Downvotes filter low quality, irrelevant, and illegal content.

Is there a way to build a "safe space" without building an echo chamber online? Is that even a valuable thing to build?

People really need to take responsibility for their media diets and stop conflating every group consensus with an echo chamber. You are in control of what communities you participate in. One can find communities built around almost any idea or belief.

If you go to a community formed around a concept and play devils advocate... you deserve what you get. That doesn't make it an echo chamber. Just makes you captain Ahab.

I am very new to this community, and I don’t have much experience with niche internet community dynamics, so I wouldn’t take my words with too much weight; I just like to contribute where I can.

After years of watching the upvote/downvote system play out, I have don’t think downvoting is particularly useful at all. In theory, it allows a community to self-moderate and remove harmful posts. In practice, people use it to downvote things they disagree with and it encourages alienation.

I have had moments where I downvoted something, remembered that this was Lemmy, removed the downvote and wrote a carefully worded response instead, because that is the best way to connect through the internet. Will it work every time? No. Are you a better person for trying? Yes.

It is much more difficult to challenge someone in a healthy manner. This challenging process gets completely avoided by downvoting. One downvote click and any attempt at empathy is gone. But that all depends on whether you want to bother.

Harmful people get banned anyways, so how do downvotes assist that process?

It may be that downvoting prevents people from writing enflamed responses but I’m unsure. My view is that upvotes and downvotes should not be the same as likes and dislikes for the exact echo chamber reasoning in OP. There’s needs to be room for dissonance.

I got banned from a community where I agreed with probably 90% of takes. Ended up having to block a whole instance because I would type replies on unrelated topics only to be told I was banned - would be nice to know that before I wasted time typing a message.

Yep I can confirm. Got banned 3 times, different periods, and all were “just because I can”. But I don’t give a s. I just crate a new account and continue. Trying to find a place where moderation is only for extreme situations.

Better discovery of related communities, including everything from cross-endorsement from mods, to public user lists of communities, to lemmy instance admin recommended communities (kinda like old reddit default subs, per instance), to fediverse reputation mechanisms, etc.

Also better UX, like lemmy clients with "multireddit" style browsing support.

When interacting with individual lemmy communities, we need better introductions and exposure to rules and guidelines while posting.

Individual communities and instances should be able to run themselves however they want. The lemmy network will be healthiest when people know what to expect and where to find what they want. And if you don't find a place, it should be easier to create and advertise it.

And lastly: community coaching where experienced mods teach new ones.