Getting muted is the worst thing that can happen to a troll.

Why do you think people troll? It's to get people's reactions and to derive joy from outrage.
What happens when you get muted? You can't get people outraged anymore, therefore there's no joy.

I can speak from experience (don't judge me) that getting muted sucks the fun right out of trolling. There's no fun in not getting the response you want. Basically you troll with the expectation of kicks and bans. It's because people are literally forcing you to leave; that's a reaction, and you can respond to that. But when you get muted it's different. When you get muted you can't react, you can't create more outrage; therefore it becomes boring. And when it becomes boring you leave, voluntarily. And that difference is what's key to stopping trolls.
A troll who leaves voluntarily won't come back.
Sure, there are outliers. People who still find joy in trolling despite being muted. You won't get rid of those with bans either. But those are outliers; there are less of those. That means less trolls.

tl;dr: muted trolls get bored and leave. Simple as that.

 

I completely agree with this statement although I have something to add, if a troll gets muted for 15 mins they usually just wait and continue to troll and if they keep doing it after that I think a kick or temp ban should be issued or a more serious punishment like a month mute because even after the hour mute they are most likely to continue. overall +1