Alphax/Geni/everyone else,
Here is the evidence, for you to peruse. The first part is a repost from earlier emails, second is my condensation of salient points that Jimbo and I went over on IRC, and the final will be an analysis of Itaqallah's claim (which I consider spurious and deceptive) that the sources in the item he reverted did not support the text given.
Phase 1: FayssalF/Svest's misconstruing of a block log.
FayssalF/Svest (I really don't like deceptive signatures, as an aside: your username should be in your signature!) made a comment on WP:ANI:"Ummmmmmm! Talking about an admin who got a clean block log? This is yourshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:RunedChozo(5 blocks w/in 1 month). Please behave. -- *Szvest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FayssalF * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikiquote-logo.svg *Wiki me up (r)* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:FayssalF 19:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)"
The block log in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&pag...
I went through the list, counting up until the time when Svest made his post. Here's what I discovered (you can follow them yourself, from bottom up): #1 - block by Aecis, related to a good-faith page move related to commentary left on WP:ANI about a page needing to be moved. Blocked for ignoring a warning posted to the page, but looks to me like a well-meaning mistake that resulted in a block. Aecis's comment on RunedChozo's page concurs with this. #2 - First 3RR, not uncommon for new users. Block by William for "infinite". #2.5 - William resets this to a proper 24 hours; Shouldn't really even count this as a "new" block since it's William fixing his own mistake. Svest counts this as "Three." #3 - Future Perfect at Sunrise - surprisingly friendly with Itaqallah - blocks RunedChozo for a massive 72 hours. 3RR not even violated. #4 - William blocks for 3RR: 72 hours yet again. RunedChozo contests, claiming he didn't actually break the line, and is yelled at for "gaming the system." If we have 3RR, fine, but now they're just hounding this user, not to mention slapping on out-of-process ridiculously long blocks compared to what policy states.
We have policy on 3RR, and it says 24 hours. I find it amazing how quickly two admins decided that a tripling of the normal time was appropriate.
Phase 2: Analysis of the edits reported by RunedChozo at WP:ANI. Jimbo and I went through this line by line on IRC, so I'll present it in the same fashion.
A bit of further analysis on the history on this page: it appears that RunedChozo isn't the only editor that edit wars on that page. Itaqallah and others have been continually reverting and edit warring with other editors on it, to the point where it's almost two articles side by side: each side seems to call up their preferred version from the history, then "tweak" it, before dropping it in as a "revert." Besides being a rather pale attempt at gaming the 3RR system (see also: Complex Reverts), it causes a bloody mess when trying to untangle the article later.
Thus the analysis is long, and many changes I will mention only to tag with "multiple version problem."
The edit in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muhammad_as_a_diplomat&diff=93...
The edit summary was "rv unsourced OR".
Change one: major difference appears the "to which both parties had agreed" line. Other portions of this change appear semantic and a result of the multiple version problem. However, change has no relation to edit summary, and appears to be related to edits introduced by Arrow740 and not RunedChozo. Conclusion: Not related to case.
Change two: asked/requested. Semantics only, likely multiple version problem. Conclusion: not related to case.
Change three: Block of text removed. This is the same block of text introduced by RunedChozo, the same Itaqallah refers to in his email to us. Conclusion: This is the bone of contention, but we analyzed the whole thing just to be sure, so I'll continue.
Change four: One paragraph split into two due to image removal/reinsertion. Beyond image, no text difference. Likely multiple version problem again, Conclusion: not related to case.
Change five: preceding/succeeding: semantics only, multiple version problem. Conclusion: not related to case.
Change six: readdition of Al-Mubarakpuri quote. Not sure what relevance the quote has to article. Also not a "removal" by Itaqallah, so we deemed it of no relevance to the case.
Change seven: Merely referencing a Koranic quote, versus inserting the entire quote into the article. After a side discussion over whether having the whole quote did anything for the article, we deemed this not related to the case.
Change eight: "Quotefarm" template. We weren't sure what this is, but deemed it not related to the case.
Change nine: removal of first name of Irfah Shahid, change of "It" to "He": semantics, likely related to multiple version problem. Conclusion: not related to the case.
As you can see, the only edit Jimbo and I deemed relevant to the case was indeed Change Three. Because the text block includes a definite Source: statement, we deemed that the edit summary was indeed deceptive.
The second bone of contention was this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muhammad_as_a_diplomat&diff=93...
with the edit summary of "try using the talk page: we have already discussed these changes".
However, Jimbo and I checked the talk page, and saw no discussion at all related to the only edit up above relevant to the case, which indicates that this edit summary is deceptive as well, though not quite as bad given that Itaqallah and others have been in ongoing edit wars on this article and we have the Multiple Version Problem going on.
Which leads us to the next, in which Itaqallah sent Luna an email and asked her to forward it, making the claim now that his edit summary is "valid" because the sources somehow do not support the edit.
Phase three: Rebuttal to Itaqallah's claim
Now, the first thing to consider is that despite Itaqallah's claim that the "source" (singular) does not support the edit in question, what is given there is actually three sources: biographies of Mohammed by the Muslim scholars Ibn Hisham, Al-Waqidi, and Ibn Sa'ad.
Regrettably, Itaqallah is correct in his assertion that the sources are only published in Arabic. Why this is is probably a question better left for another time.
Unfortunately for Itaqallah, plenty of scholarly study of the life of Mohammed has been done, by people who are versed in Arabic and competent to read and analyze those sources, so we have a good number of scholarly and Muslim leadership quotes which seem to concur with the edit in question.
*Bernard Lewis* (he seems to be a favorite source by many of our stridently anti-Israel editors, too): "the murder of a Muslim by a Meccan for what appears to have been a purely private difference of opinion served as *casus belli* for the final attack and the conquest of Mecca."
*John Glubb*: "It is possible that the Prophet himself was ill content at the prospect of having to wait ten years before he could march on Mecca, which now seemed as ready as a ripe plum to fall into his lap. He may consequently have welcomed the opportunity Beni Kinana had supplied, enabling him to break the truce."
*Carl Brockelmann*: Muhammad "was simply waiting for a pretext to settle accounts with [Quraysh] once and for all. A brawl between a Bedouin tribe converted to Islam and some partisans of Quraysh, in which some townsmen from Mecca itself are supposed to have taken part, presented a pretext for declaring the peace broken."
MA Khan (in an article analyzing the 2003 OIC speech by Dr. Mahathir Mohammed in which he called for a truce which would lead to the later destruction of Israel): "Although a 10-year truce was signed, Muhammad broke the agreement and attacked Mecca within two years as his force became strong enough to overrun the coveted city. From the treaty of Hudaibiyya and the subsequent capture of Mecca and Ka'ba two years later, the evident message of the master tactician Prophet of Islam is such: *'When you are weaker against your enemy, do not jump into a suicidal war. In stead, sign a truce of nonaggression for a while during which you could build up the force and ammunition and when you are strong enough to overrun the enemy, dump the truce and launch the attack'*."
Yassir Arafat, in a radio address on May 4, 1994: "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca." "Umar ibn al-Khattab, the prophet had been right to insist on the agreement, for it helped him defeat the Quraysh and take over their city of Mecca. In a similar spirit, we now accept the peace agreement, but [only in order] to continue on the road to Jerusalem."
Now, the Muslim writers have their own side, and claim it was the Meccans who broke the truce. Our article on Mohammed, however, mentions next to none of this, and certainly not the historical controversy involved in it. The comment by Yassir Arafat is most relevant, since it directly indicates that Muslim scholarly opinion sees the Meccan treaty as not a peaceful treaty, but one to buy time to build up military force.
Do I think the edit was one-sided? Absolutely. Did it deserve to be completely stripped out? Probably not. And on the whole, the article [[Mohammed the Diplomat]], after spending a good amount of time going through the references and page history, appears to be very biased in favor of making Mohammed look as good as possible, rather than an NPOV presentation of diplomatic episodes in Mohammed's life and noting fairly when there is a controversy over his actions.
And as for Itaqallah's claim that the source did not support the edit, well, I'm afraid that appears from my research so far to be not the case at all.
Parker