For any members who have been following along with this, I have checked in with Timothy tonight by e-mail and he has confirmed that the rules as stated below stand.
- If your post receives this kind of response, whether in direct replies, as a separate topic being made, or by PM in a manner you experience as unhelpful or unwanted, please use the flag function (three dots at the bottom of each PM or post, there is a confirmation stage and the person whose content you flagged will not be made aware) and Staff will take suitable steps to prevent that kind of activity from curtailing your use of the forum to post your magickal working.
The forum’s full rules are explained here.
I have kept both Samnu and Siconyte informed of this process and given them permission to share screencaps of my PMs if anyone wishes to enquire how the moderation process was conducted and what the final response was, and logged the entire thing in the Staff section in case anyone has questions or doubts as to why decisions are made (transparent moderation ftw, saves time and worry all round 
).
I’m closing this topic now but hope it will serve for a little rumour-control and generally to clarify how things get done round here.