Hmm. We ignore and mute for different reasons, is what I'm getting from our last few exchanges. I ignore people who always have low-quality content that I would never want to see -- you're more heavy-handed it sounds like, so I can understand why you might want to "venture forth" occasionally. I probably never would.
I ignore people who engage me in flame wars. I've nearly ignored theadvancedapes a few times because his content is entirely too pie-eyed popular science for my tastes, but he's earnest, he's polite (far more polite than I am), he's trying hard, and he's sharing the stuff that interests him (and clearly interests others) and it's good to keep an eye on that stuff. I ignore obvious spammers. Doesn't gain me much but I figure mk's got some secret sauce back there to detect spam and I assume I'm helping.