First, welcome here! I agree with you that this thread is taken too personally by some people which leads to baiting. It's understandable: being muted can feel like a personal attack, even though it is nothing more than one person making it slightly harder to reach him/her. Hubski is about self-moderating, so if you think a person here is someone you wouldn't want to talk to or want to see less of, you can hush, filter or mute them by going to their profile. If you have any questions about how the site works, feel free to ask! Here are all the posts in my feed that are shared more than 20 times. I suggest you read those (and/or change the number in the url to a higher one) to find the posts that better represent what hubski is about than this one. Also, is there any particular reason you have 18 W's in your name?
It's a problem that many people are characterizing the issues myself and others have with the mute feature in this way. I defend anyone's right to prevent me from communicating with them. The issue is the way muting works currently, it also prevents me from being involved in a discussion with others when they mute me. Fix that single aspect, and most of my issues with this site magically disappear.