Agreed that uncivil administrators can be a part of a negative feedback
loop of stress and cynicism, as can uncivil WMF staff and others in
positions of authority. However, there are no perfect human beings and if
we demanded that all administrators and WMF staff be perfect at all times
then there would be no one left to guard the fort, so we must accept that
we are all human beings who will occasionally mess up. People who mess up
in particularly significant ways, or who mess up repeatedly, can be sacked;
English Wikipedia's arbitration committee has not been shy about removing
admin rights of admins who mess up. Fortunately, it seems to me that the
vast majority of administrators are net assets to the community (perhaps I
am biased because I am an admin, although on small wikis.) I do think that
offering professionally designed training to administrators might be
helpful in certain areas, such as training administrators on how to deal
with harassment and conflict including how to de-escalate situations, and
how to interact with victims as well as bullies. For training sessions, I
think that videos and group discussions might be more memorable and
reinforcing than written materials for individual study.
I agree with James that we likely need a mix of approaches, one of them
being better ways of dealing with block evasion.
Pine