As a third party reader of the thread, I think I’d rather make my own decisions on who I would want to mute rather than have to depend on the decisions of whoever started the thread. Though I’d like a mode or filter of sorts where I can see that lots of people have muted someone’s post or their entire account.

If "some jerk" deletes my post, it wastes my time, and will cause me to reply less in the future (to everyone else too), that's the "chilling effect" I was thinking about.

Ultimately, I think the poster/replier should own their own notes (undeletable), that's like a basic principle of nostr.

I tend to agree with nostr:nprofile1qqs2qzx779ted7af5rt04vzw3l2hpzfgtk0a2pw6t2plaz4d2734vngpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7hycrvd that reports (kind 1984) seem to be the best way to do this. I can reply to you, and you can tag my reply as low value/spam, and other readers (or their clients) can decide for themselves.