TL;DR use --edit audio:threshold=NUM instead.
--silent-threshold has been with us since the literal first day of auto-editor's existence. However, it's continued usage has become problematic. It's finally time to put this aging option to rest.
Every threshold controls what is considered silent and loud, yet --silent-threshold only controls audio threshold. This used to make sense when auto-editor used to only have one way of automatically editing files. But now, it's not so obvious that it still only controls audio threshold, or really, that --silent-threshold only controls the default value of the threshold attribute of --edit, which leads us to...
--edit's Syntax Is So Much NicerWith --edit's syntax, you can edit multiple tracks with different thresholds, something never possible with the --silent-threshold.
auto-editor multi-track.mov --edit 'audio:stream=0,threshold=0.04 or audio:stream=1,threshold=0.09'
It's also much clearer how threshold impacts the editing process while --silent-threshold is much more opaque on how it exactly works and how it interacts with --edit. Why bother explaining how --silent-threshold interacts with --edit to every user when --edit is better in every way?
--silent-threshold and it's alias -t is used surprising little in scripts. I look at GitHub's Dependency Graph and watch various YouTube videos showcasing auto-editor to gauge how options are used in the real world, and in all usages I can find, it's never mentioned at all. This might be both that 4% is a very good default that doesn't need changing and/or how audio threshold works is unintuitive, which is why it is never explained or used. Whatever the case, this lack of usage means --silent-threshold can be removed without causing annoyance.
When I removed --export-to-premiere and --export-to-final-cut-pro options, I used a 'macro' that essentially silently treats '--export-to-premiere' like '--export premiere' and this allowed users to write the option in the "old style", blissfully unaware of any changes, even when the option and it's help text technically doesn't exist anymore. The reason why I didn't use a similar strategy for --silent-threshold is that any script makers who feel the need to change silent threshold, are the people most who would benefit from the flexibility of --edit.