And you cannot ignore the distinguished (mod hat) posts or comments regardless of who you have blocked. That I know works the same here.

That's not true. I tested it many times on Reddit when I was still an active mod and user there. We had users in the sub miss important announcements and even ModMail, because they accidentally blocked one of us. We nearly perma-banned one of our regular users before a mod guessed they might have fat-fingered on mobile, and reached out to them individually.

I just tested it with my alt/testing account here on SaidIt, which I swear I've done before, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't cray-cray and forgetting or missing a change. I have a private sub that I and other mods use for testing CSS/AutoMod/etc. My alt/testing account is an approved submitter in that private sub, but not a mod like the rest of us. My alt/testing account just blocked me, TumbleweedFireflies, and can no longer see anything I (Tumbleweed) posted or commented in the private sub, whether distinguished/mod hat or not.

if you're the mod you see the comments of people you blocked as collapsed.

This part is true, and thank you! I had no idea!

I blocked my alt/testing account, and went back to the post/comment chain, and see it collapsed with the words "blocked user" next to it. I'm going to look into what that element is, and try to make it more pronounced and obvious using CSS. The text is very easy to overlook, and I don't know how it would appear if a user has custom flair.

There's another issue with that though. I, Tumbleweed, do not have the option to even block the alt/testing account in my private sub. I removed the account as an approved submitter, in case that was the reason. It did not change anything, I still cannot block the account, the option isn't there under comments or posts.

In case the issue is due to being a private sub, my alt/testing account commented on a super old post of mine in a public sub. I still don't see the option to block my alt/testing account from within the post/comment chain itself. The only way I can block my alt/testing account is by being in my inbox seeing the comment reply.

So there is still a little something wonky with being a sub mod and being able to block users. It should be an option right next to "report" within the post/comment chain, whether I'm a mod or not.