You cannot really stop the deletion of posts in self-moderated threads - part of the reason that I mostly do not participate in self-moderated threads (outside of the wall observer) - unless i have some confidence in OP... However, once any of my posts get deleted in a self-moderated thread, I discontinue participating (outside of the wall observer, again).

Another thing is that if some kind of relationship that I have on the interwebs starts to go down the path of interpersonal squabbles, I try NOT to take those matters personally or to get emotional about such interactions.

Of course, if we are human, there is going to be some emotionality, but there still are best practices to keep the emotion out of such interactions - and sure some members are going to build more and more reputation - even if you do not believe in such... so in the end, you would need to consider the extent that it is to your advantage to be engaging in battles with those members... sure call them out from time to time... I am not opposed to that.; but there still should be some balance in terms of whether you are  allowing these interactions to cause you to get worked up or distracted.

By the way, I probably did not really want to hear about some of these details (even though I asked), but I also have a kind of preference that if you mention anything at all then you should provide some evidence (maybe not nullius levels of evidence but some reasonable level of evidence) to back up what you have said... so at least the reader gets the reference.