3. marto sends me a message my post was deleted.
4. I message marto whether he's going to delete the originating post.
5. He replies with a suggestion to "flag it appropriately".

I considered your node, which was just abuse, the system itself sends a message if reaped, not me. You replied asking "and you're not going to delete the flamebait parent?". Firstly nodes don't get 'deleted' via this mechanism, simply hidden behind another click, with the moderation reason displayed beforehand. I asked if you have flagged it, at the time you hadn't. Flagging such nodes or just ignoring posts/users you consider to be trolling is a better approach than an abusive response. You've been here a long time, I'm surprised you'r not familiar with this common approach here.