If you’re not making posts that the community members want to see, then they are justified in downvoting you so that they do their part to influence the culture of the community.

If they're not interested in metal music then they're not ever going to be part of the community, so if they don't want to see anything there - there can just block the community. That's what the block button for communities you don't like is for.

Why should a metal community orientate itself and placate itself to what people who don't like metal like? If someone started downvoting all metal music videos on the community and said they were doing so because they don't like metal, then why would I keep them around to keep doing that?

The fact that you’re only targeting downvoters and not upvoters leads me to believe you want to surround yourself with yes-men instead of authentic people.

I don't look at it anymore for the most part. Most people upvote as a matter of normality. I want content to spread across the fediverse.

If you think 5 people downvoting you is what’s stopping your posts from gaining visibility, then you are simply incorrect. Lemmy is still very small and most communities that aren’t tech or politics aren’t “visible” because they lack activity.

The community was much smaller then, and they would hurt visibility by getting in quickly and preventing the posts from trending. I don't really know how you can also claim that multiple accounts with no post history, and sometimes no upvoting history were remotely authentic accounts sincerely interested in meaningfully positively impacting the fediverse.