You don't have to go that far. It's not your fault or problem. We haven't had to lock any big threads for temporary bad behavior on the part of a few users, and I don't see that it is a problem here.
It's really, really rare that a user gets reported for spamming. It's only happened maybe twice or three times in 3 years. Usually the problem resolves itself because the people involved realize they must have done something extremely out of the ordinary to attract mod attention. I think the people involved know who they are, and that they ought to respect others by focusing more on the quality of their posts rather than the quantity. I think this will most likely resolve on its own quietly without mods having to use mod powers.