Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Douglas Kinsella


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. L Faraone  05:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Douglas Kinsella

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Not notable. No major media coverage of him in a biographic sense that show notability or life story, though there is some mention of his bioethic views. Some mention on the Internet of the posthumous award in his name but otherwise draws blank in news and Google search for biographic purpose. The award may be worth an entry. Some scholarly material but fails WP:PROF. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 01:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  02:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  02:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  02:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * weak Keep the award is a pretty strong indication of notability, though it's hard to find a lot on him now. -- Scray (talk) 04:37, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: This annal lists him as one of the people who pioneered the Canadian Bioethics Society. He also seems to have done a study on assisted suicide that gained quite a bit of coverage in both books and the news. It also seems to be quoted or referenced quite a bit in textbooks such as this one. Tokyogirl79  (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem is that he's quoted in passing. Virtually no bio material on him or anything that puts his work in context or shows he's more important than the many other bioethicists. As for the award, it could be like a scholarship where the family or the person funds it through an annuity. Fails WP:GNG Spoonkymonkey (talk) 10:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. He was a professor and he was awarded CM, FRCPC, FACP.  Wikipedia is lacking many medical biographies it should really have.  Lack of coverage might mean it cannot advance beyond a stub at this stage, there is sometimes a lack of obituaries for older people whose peers have been retired for a long time and are no longer active.  This  I presume has been published by his family, but it seems reliable confirmation of this. (Does the FRCPC have anything equivalent to Plarr's Lives of the Fellows?) Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Still no reliable biographic sources.He didn't die that long ago. if he was notable, there would have been full obituaries in major publications. Instead, we are asked to rely on death notices from the family to prove notability. The FRCPC and FACP designations are very common.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 22:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Like this one in the Journal of Rheumatology? Also, I do think that FRCPC is a notable level.  He was also President of the Canadian Rheumatology Association. Barney the barney barney (talk) 22:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Again, another family-authored piece. Barney, have you heard of the present president of the Canadian Rheumatology Association -- an august group that has somehow flown under the radar to the extent that no one has created a Wikipedia page for it? The past president? The president is Dr. Carter Thorne and the past president is Dr. Cory Baillie. I think those red letters tell us how quickly Wikipedia leaps to acknowledge the notability of presidents of the CRA. I'd be much more impressed if a major Canadian newspaper had done an obit on this guy.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 11:11, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is a poor argument, I'm not sure that WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESN'TEXIST is any better. Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:ANYBIO #1 as recipient of the Order of Canada, and probably WP:SCHOLAR as professor emeritus of medical bioethics at the University of Calgary medical school. A quick newspaper search using Nexis UK gives:
 * David Vienneau, "19% of MDs say patients sought mercy killing", The Toronto Star, February 19, 1993, Friday, AM, News A2 reports on a study by Kinsella and Marja Verhoef into euthanasia.
 * Gerry Bellett, "AIDS patient says he has made plans to end his life", The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), September 29, 1994, Thursday, FINAL EDITION, News A3 quotes Kinsella as an expert.
 * Anonymous, "MDs in study back assisted suicide", The Toronto Star, September 28, 1996, Saturday, SATURDAY SECOND EDITION, News A8 reports on another survey into physician-assisted suicide by Kinsella and Varhoef.
 * Robert Walker, "Patient hurt by drug trial", Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada), July 03, 1999, FINAL, News A14 discusses a campaign to improve drug testing by Kinsella and Jim Wright as part of an article on drug testing.
 * Robin Summerfield and Lynne Koziey, "Citizens panel help sets policy", Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada), December 18, 2000 Monday FINAL EDITION, City B1 quotes him as "professor emeritus of medical bioethics at the University of Calgary medical school" as an expert on ethics.
 * Margaret Munro, "'You failed to protect rights, safety and welfare' of boy: U.S. inspection found Canadian experiment overdosed 4-year-old", The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), February 26, 2004 Thursday Final Edition, News A3 quotes him as an expert on medical ethics and clinical research.
 * Probably someone with access to in-depth Canadian databases could find more. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Ball and see why a bunch of stories that quote someone are not considered enough evidence of notability. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 18:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Those are not just articles that quote Douglas Kinsella, but mostly articles about his work, which is much more relevant to an encyclopedia than biographical details about his personal life. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no biographical material not written by the family. The Tim Ball page was deleted for precisely this reason. A bunch of quotes with tag lines "so-and-so, an expert on such-and-such", does not establish notability or provide anything to work with to get the entry out of stub territory. People have said "keep" by saying he was president of some organization or another, when the actual organization isn't important enough to have a page. As for the Order of Canada, it has not rated a separate category, and even some recipients mentioned on the Order of Canada page show up red. I'm not saying this guy's a nobody. Obviously he was a moderately successful doctor and a medical prof. But that has not been enough to establish Wikipedia notablility.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you read my last comment? The point is that articles about academics should be based on coverage of their work, not of their favourite colours or inside leg measurements. And the absence of other articles is totally irrelevant, as Wikipedia is far from complete. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you follow my link and see how a whole whack of press material like this was rejected as evidence of notability? If you want to channel your genius into going through this material and making a bio that is up to Wikipedia standards, be my guest. I am sure you do more on Wikipedia than dazzle people with commentary.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In the discussion that you linked a whole whack of opinion pieces and primary source material was rightly rejected as evidence of notability. In this case we have independent coverage of the subject's work, a totally different kettle of fish. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:03, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep for the Order of Canada (WP:PROF), for the presidency of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (#C6), for the media attention paid to his research (particularly the assisted suicide surveys in 1993 and 1996 and the drug testing improvement campaign in 1999; I'm not counting stories that merely quote him as an expert) (#C7), for several highly cited papers in Google scholar (#C1, though the case here is weaker than for the other WP:PROF criteria), and for the reliably published biographical material about him  (WP:GNG). —David Eppstein (talk) 20:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep The Order of Canada is definitive proof, and actually nothing further needs to be proven (though there is a great deal additional available, as summarized by David e.) That some of the people earning the award don't yet have articles is not evidence of their lack of notability, but a problem to be remedied. I am quite amused by the implied argument that lack of coverage in WP is proof of lack of notability. ` DGG ( talk ) 04:28, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You are easily amused. I see that the article -- actually, the stub of an article on someone none of you have ever heard of -- will stay. I'm dying to see how much real work you will undertake to actually fix this article, rather than just impart your feelings to us.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 16:28, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have to respond to every keep vote to have the last word? It seems to be slightly uncivil when you have nothing of any worth to say.  It also seems that you're taking an overly personal interest in this deletion discussion, the reason for this is that you have some interest in his son Warren Kinsella, which is now under page protection because of edit warring. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I found the Kinsella page had been whitewashed by Warren Kinsella, whose self-ID'd accounts have been locked down for sockpuppetry. There were several satellite pages created or mostly written by Kinsella: one on his garage band, another on his girlfriend, and this one. I wanted to basically muck out what I saw as vanity pages and promo edits. I did not mention this earlier in the discussion because I wanted the page to stay or go on its own merit, and not have his son's blanking actions, vandalism, lawsuit threats and other breaches of Wikipedia rules and etiquette have an influence on the discussion.I assure you the Warren Kinsella page is not locked down because of vandalism or trouble caused by me. In fact, I'm the person who ID'd the vandalism and asked for page protection. The version that's locked is a reversion to the last good, pre-blanking edit, which was mine. I'm only talking about it now because you brought it up. I wonder if you have some sort of dog in this fight?Spoonkymonkey (talk) 21:52, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. An Order of Canada and having a prestigious award named after him suggest notability. Obviously sourcing needs to be improved. I'll see if I can add some material. JJ Williams (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tokyogirl's findings. Does not seem like there is an appetite to delete this and the delete camp's arguments don't seem particularly strong against GNG. Mkdw talk 08:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.