Having seen the post by b_b, I suppose this is a moot mute discussion, but I did want to offer you my response to a few of your points, which I hope is okay. I don't wish to be disrespectful to you or anyone else in this community.

"I question how it could be abused after watching Reddit's decline and manipulation."

Go ahead and question. What solid, evidence-based arguments do you care to make? Because then we're having a discussion, not slinging mud.

It was a poor choice on my part to bring that up without qualifying where I was coming from. I've been increasingly frustrated seeing comments and submissions (particularly related to news and politics) deleted, pigeonholed or marginalized by vague rules or nontransparent moderators. It feels like many Reddit participants are not interested in discussion, but rather, manipulating, distracting, or otherwise preventing discussion. I suppose the quality of the discussion is as much a result of the individual participants as it is the framework of the site that it takes place in. A news story posted to Reddit is filtered through different subreddits to reflect different community's interests and proffer their group's opinions. Obviously Hubski simply hasn't grown large or diverse enough to mirror the same effects with users as subreddits.

I'm growing to like the idea of following individuals whose contributions I value; there is some inherent transparency that comes from developing a personal rapport with other users. I suppose the more time I spend here, the better feeling I will get for individual Hubskian's world views and can feel more confident in offering my opinions while not unduly offending or stepping on a person's toes.

I wouldn't really consider myself as either one of your polar factions (literally Hitler or cocktail party), although I get the sardonicism in your use of the "literally Hitler" meme to represent the outsiders. I do understand your point that a "mute as global comment ignore" or whatever that side was pushing for (I think I unfortunately made a comment in tepid support of it), neuters mute too much. I like the idea that the creator of the post is the moderator of that post, and anyone can post whatever they want.

Perhaps the biggest point of disagreement that I would have with you is that an apology is always necessary, or would work in every circumstance. For example, I think it was minimum_wage (please forgive me if I'm wrong!) who mentioned that even if someone apologized to him/her, it wouldn't make a difference, which is fine. If some libertarian (or any other ideological label) is distracting, attacking or trolling my posts without adding any value, I would be within my right, and perhaps expected, to mute him, regardless of an apology.

I suppose my considerations of the mute feature are borne from imagining how it would look in 2016 when Hubski has grown (10x, 100x, maybe even 1000x?) and popular users are submitting pro-Hillary for president content with rampant astroturfing while muting users who are offering critical discussion. How will regular users be able to navigate that type of thing? I suppose the Hubski model makes astroturfing more difficult, and the lack of global moderation would allow the real discussion to spill elsewhere. In the end, I guess it's pie in the sky to wonder about these things; it's better to go along for the ride rather than to knock over the apple cart out of some perceived threat.

"I've seen accusations of abuse, with varying degrees of merit, in my opinion."

List them and explain why you think they merit. It then becomes a debate rather than slander.

Honestly, I'm not friends with any of the people involved, nor was I part of the discussion, so I wouldn't really hold my opinion in high regard. I came to this, and other threads, to discuss the mute feature specifically, not some past disagreement between people I don't know. I regret even mentioning that I have an opinion on that.

At any rate, I appreciate the time you spent discussing this with me. As someone who is relatively new to Hubski, it feels daunting to become a member of the community; there is no tutorial for getting to know people.