It's not just him, though. Say we're in a thread on the #microbiology tag because we all totally love microbiology. zeroFail has just created a thread about microscopic spores. You actually know more about microscopic spores than anyone else on the site. You're actually an expert on the specific type of spore we're discussing and someone's made a grievous error that all the rest of us are happily going along with. Unfortunately zeroFail disagrees with your position on Israel and has muted you, so you can't contribute to the thread. Do you miss out? Yeah, sure, a little. You don't get to fulfill that impulse to share relevant knowledge that you possess. By and large, though, the subscribers of #microbiology miss out. Instead of having some new factual information now they're spreading some nonsense they read on Hubski around because of your disagreement with zeroFail on a completely unrelated topic. Not such a big deal when it's only a handful of people blocking one another. If it gets out of hand, though, you can see how the quality of conversation might suffer.
The problem is that we're dealing with the hypotheticals of a future site and for any answer I give you on a hypothetical it's infinitely possible for you to come back with, "yeah, but what if..." that doesn't quite fit the rule. If you're not sure how something fits into the culture, observe the culture more. Try to figure out why people do what they do and don't worry too much about defining actions for every possible future. Do what you feel is right and if you have a community that agrees, they can follow with you. I was trying to avoid saying it but, and damnit kleinbl00, lurk moar.
Well, we'd have to look at the established pattern of what we've already seen. I don't know what that is because while I've apparently had an account for two years I haven't been using it nearly that long. Has there been an issue so far at all with things like block lists or groups fragmenting?