Talk:Warren Kinsella

Awards?

I did a Google search on Kinsella and the Sun Newspaper bios say he's an award-winning journalist and author. The awards he won should be in the entry. Can someone with more time try to hunt them down? Spoonkymonkey (talk) 15:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find any, but I am sure there must be something out there that I am missing. Maybe user:Kinsellawarren can be unblocked long enough to give us a list and some sources. They really should be there. Also he might be able to give something to back up the Sun newspapers' claim he "ran" the federal Liberal war rooms in 1993 and 2000. There seems to be some controversy in that regard. Various socks have put it in, but we've never had a solid source.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you send him an email? Toddst1 (talk) 21:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a really good idea. I'll get on that. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Northern Foundation

I am pretty uncomfortable with this section. Is this for real? Yes, his name is on the Industry Canada listing but is it some kind of prank? Did someone post his name there as a joke? If Kinsella still checks this page he should be unblocked if he has anything to say about this. We need to keep this page as accurate as possible and remember BLP policies. I'd take it off but it is sourced and I don't want to get into a revert war. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 20:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

After some thought, I've decided to remove it until we know more about it. Did Kinsella himself register as a director? Is it this Warren Kinsella. Yes, it's not a typical name but I'm not sure that it's a good idea to pull something like this off the Internet and present it as evidence of anything. The entry needs much more work as it is. For instance, there's not nearly enough about his books, which should be described with more than just a list of titles. Were any of them best-sellers? Did any of them win awards? I hope a Canadian picks up on this. I have spent a lot of time on this rather obscure and somewhat nasty and unpleasant person. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

After the Northern Foundation tidbit was dropped into this entry, I decided to re-research and take another run at it. Kinsella is obviously someone who is truly hated by his enemies, and the Internet has a lot of negative material about him and very little that's positive (for example, I could not find one positive review of his last book from anything other that the sad sack Washington Times, and precious little positive material written about him before that. He does not show up in the indexes of any important modern books on Canadian political strategy as anything more than a blogger. He strikes me as someone who had a brief flash of a career 13 years ago but is pretty much trading on that since.) Through the years, the entry has become a catalog of screw-ups and mis-steps, with a lot more salacious material than useful facts. I have cleaned it up and am leaving it. If people want to revert it to an entry that focuses on Kinsella's mistakes, that's their choice. If it wasn't for the books, I'd put the entry up for deletion and I expect it would pass. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 19:45, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Even the books are barely notable, for example "Party Favours" was a risible attempt to profit off of "Primary Colours" that bombed, and it's hard to say any of the others have had great impact. John Rae by most sources had a greater role in each (groan) "war room," but he doesn't warrant a Wikipedia entry. Kinsella's a PR professional who gets in online flame wars as a hobby, so anything here will be a tug of war between all the participants of those flame wars. My recommendation is delete (which I believe is Kinsella's preference, for what it is worth), or if not possible, trim to the complete, verifiable bone, with anything contested lifted. Knoper (talk) 04:48, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism

FYI, Kinsella has linked to a mockup of this page on his blog as it was being vandalized.

For what it's worth, as I note above, the article as it is now is a bit padded, and could probably be a third of its length, though I've come around to thinking some items do deserve a mention. Also, "war room" isn't encyclopedic language and should be avoided (like it is in the current article). Knoper (talk) 16:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Edits

OK, I've tried to clean it up a bit. Any thoughts? Knoper (talk) 19:48, 18 April 2014 (

"Minor" controversies

Well, another attempt to speedy delete. I didn't get any feedback on my last post (which has been blanked for some reason) and would like to get some consensus on adding/removing:

• "Cat meat" and "cookies", looking at it again, seem pretty minor and in need of removal. They seemed to have been added by someone who liked Kinsella getting hoisted by his petard; while I trimmed them, might be best to let them go. Anyone opposed?
• Might be better to replace "shrapnel machine" with a comment that it was a common Conservative talking point to attack Kinsella pre-QP (this is verifiable).
• Website/blog mention?

Any and all comments welcome.Knoper (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Leave it as it is. Catmeat was raised in House of Commons, got much ethnic press. Cookies was an Ontario election incident. Shrapnel accurately portrays rep as strategist. Entry is accurate and properly sourced. People who worked on this page should be consulted before major changes are made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.14.66 (talk) 19:43, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I've been very clear that others should be consulted, and I've frequently invited others to do so. I notice that you're the IP that erased my earlier remark, why did you do so? Knoper (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC)