Drive by negativity for niche communities can have a outsized chilling effect, moderation tools to help the smaller discussions grow would be useful here too.
If a smaller community has people who don't like it, they can turn that small community into a place to be negative about what that community is trying to be.
So when people want to talk about that community, they go into the post, and they see negativity, and they're less likely to participate. They don't want to deal with the negativity, they don't want to deal with the naysayers