Nothing is forbidden, but everything has consequences
This is sooooo true, you can do whatever you want, literally anything, but people will react to what you do how they please
Regarding the topic, I would say to mute and ignore, I know you said you don't want, but if you do you won't get anymore notification for pings which is the annoying thing
The pings are not so annoying, but I have my reasons for not muting.
I do like the ability to collapse comments.... it does a great job of cleaning up comment sections. OH.. there is THAT dude... click, gone