It might make sense that you have nearly 1K followers on this site. As for myself I've less than fifty. In my case I think I've kept to the shadows enough to not encourage active flaming. And that's definitely one thing I like about hubski: Free expression without notoriety. Understood! and myself and most of the community respects you for it.There are arguments worth winning and there are arguments worth ignoring and there are people who are primarily interested in talking to you so they can get a rise out of you. And while the zen monk approach is "wax on, wax off" I am not a zen monk.
So - you have 50 followers. You've muted two people. Let's invent a new thing - we'll call it "mute ratio." In your case, that'd be 25:1. I have 950 followers. If I muted the equivalent number of people as you, I'd have 38 people muted. As it turns out, I have 33. yet I shall always be the dick in this discussion.