[WikiEN-l] Completely unreasonable block and behavior by admin friends of Itaqallah to win a content dispute

[Parker Peters]

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
yours<http://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&page=User:RunedChozo

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=93627974&oldid=93625725


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=93628886&oldid=93628310


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