Voat is now mostly dominated by a mix of shills(from reddit, activist groups, paid trolls, TLAs, whatever) and stormfronters, who are often indistinguisable in the environment they've created for themselves. And both work to drive off new members who might upset that status quo, by being rude and insulting to new people. After they get a critical mass to dogpile anyone outside, it's hard to turn a forum back. There's a few subs that avoid that through heavy moderation, which of course is a problem as well.