If I understand the quote properly, tagged scammers (with this I assume he means users who have negative feedback) can't create self-moderated threads.
The "scammer tag" was removed long before I joined Bitcointalk. It was replaced by the Trust system, and old scammer tags were replaced by negative feedback from
OldScammerTag. See
Feedback sent by OldScammerTag.
TL;DR: OP can create self-moderated topics.