I don't know. If you can edit it, a) that doesn't affect any other comments / posts later (especially if they are a power user), and b) that means that mute is even less effective for its stated purpose. This is (strongly) subjective. What one person believes to be a perfectly valid reason to mute someone another will strongly believe is not a valid reason to mute them, and wants to respond to them. Reposting on mute does not scale And, even besides that issue, there isn't an easy way to find discussion forks. Especially when it's a fork off of a comment as opposed to a fork off of a post. And if one was created, then you've just reimplemented "mute as ignore for comments", only clunkier, and more prone to fragmenting the community. Can they remove your first comment? Can't you just edit it and add "Thanks for muting me so I can't respond"?
when mute is being abused.
as long as there is a easy way to find discussion forks, I don't see it as being inherently worse.