But we aren't asking people to learn to program. We're asking them to learn to think critically.
This isn't a complex market we're talking about here. It's people's interpersonal problems becoming a problem for the entire site.

When an outsider comes here and they see the blow ups and flagging wars that are erupting, what they see is that we don't know how to control ourselves.

This is why I'm advocating a different approach. Instead of this social pyramid of a few core key influencers, it really should be mono y mono. People working out their differences on their own. Part of that involves taking away the tools that they can use to harm others and putting them on a position where they are looking at eachother across a table and sorting out their own differences.

That may require mediation, but once you begin to force that then you open up a new can of worms. It is to my mind, far better to just as a community, send a message "quit being a jerks and find a way to get along".

Mute button works remarkably well for this. Perhaps with the addition that if muted a person cannot make a reply or comment that the other party will ever see.