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Since we have loads of articles related to the show I thought it might be a good idea to co-ordinate management of them using a centralised to do list.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 17:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Can someone define what the title means?
The term 'The wire' refers to the phone tap that the detectives use in the series to gain the upper hand on the Barksdale empire. I suppose it also has allusions to being on the wire i.e. a tight rope as in they are really under pressure to crack the case because of all the pressure being put on them from above. Buy yeah it is a wierd title isn't it... a good one though in my opinion.
Along with the wire tap and the meaning of everything coming "down to the wire" there is the general idea of everything coming down through the grape vine: "I heard it on the wire." This is suggestive of the interrelated nature of the shows plotlines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.252.111.3 ( talk) 03:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
There is also the military use of the term, used to signify the defensive perimeter of a position. "outside the wire" implies an area outside the unit's control; unfamiliar. the series involves groups of people interacting with worlds outside of their "wire". Theinterior ( talk) 05:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I have heard it been suggested (I don't remember by whom) that the title is a reference to the fact that the show itself resembles an actual physical wire (like a piece of string) running through the city of Baltimore, connecting all of its various facets (or institutions) and revealing how they relate to, or parallel, one another.
The statement mentioned above is true and was detailed in both documentaries in the extras' segments of the DVD Box Sets from seasons 4 and 5. Both David Simon and Ed Burns talk about that "The Wire" was first portrayed as a wire tap (the BPD trying to take down the Barksdale Organization) and eventually, because of the specific institutions which Simon and Burns illustrate, "The Wire" became something else entirely, it became the string which tied Baltimore together, from the schools to the docks, drug kingpins to cops, etc. Mike D ( talk) 17:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeDalbey ( talk • contribs) 13:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
"The seasons are twelve or thirteen full-hour episodes in length."
It was my understanding that 12 episodes was the norm, the debut season only having one more because it included a pilot episode. Is this the case? Gram 12:59, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think there are a set amount to be honest one season has had 13 two have had 12 I don't think there is a "rule" that any future series will not be able to have 13 or more. Many TV series have different numbers of episodes in series through out their commission.
Season four has 13 episodes, so "twelve or thirteen" is correct and should stay as is. Andrewjnyc 03:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
But season five has only ten episodes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.158.75.191 ( talk) 06:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
does anyone want to attempt to create individual wiki pages for each episode?
I've set up a character list to include character summary's and lists of appaearances as per other show articles. I've tried to leave a list of all starring characters here on the main page but I think I missed some of them. -- Opark 77 14:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I just removed prodigal from the description of Nick. Prodigal(wastefully or recklessly extravagant) would seem to be a better adjective for Ziggy. Veritek83 17:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking of season 6, will there be a new season soon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.75.6 ( talk) 04:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I notice that Jeff moved the spoiler tag up to exclude the character list - this seems reasonable. Just to explain why I agreed with it including the character list before. I noticed on one TV program article that made it to featured status it was suggested that the list of actors contained spoilers because it gives the information to first time viewers that certain characters will be leaving the show. On this article they moved the list down so it was not one of the first things seen. Wish I could remember which show it was! In summary I have no problem for it just covering the synopses but wanted to add a rationale for why the spoiler tag might include the character list also. -- Opark 77 10:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I think it may be worth restructuring the article around the television project guidelines. The main sections they suggest are:
What do other editors think about these suggestions?-- Opark 77 01:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of going by Arrested Development's layout, as it's already an FA, while borrowing a little from Lost (a GA). I'd go:
We should hold off on restructuring until we get a consensus. east . 718 01:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Bravo- I'm glad to see this series getting some of the attention it deserves.
The note in episode structure about all music being ambient except for the end of the season finales is not completely accurate. In particular, I can think of three instances:
1. In season 1, around episode 6, when Avon, Stinkum, and Stringer Bell are walking through the low-rises on their way to tell D that they "think he has a snitch in the house", music is played and the scene even features slow motion.
2. In episode 11 of the second Season, Greek music plays during the 10 minutes or so preceeding Sobatka's fateful meeting with The Greek and Vondas.
3. During the cold intro of one of the Season 2 episodes, the Cash song featuring the chorus "I keep a cold watch on this heart of mine" plays while during an assortment of shots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BishopOcelot ( talk • contribs)
{{
cite episode}}
: Empty citation (
help) for citing the episodes which contain these musical examples.--
Opark 77 22:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Great work is being done here, but I have one suggestion; let's allow each character their own page. The character page will get extremely lengthy, and it matches the format of the Sopranos.
I personally will help with this, and will begin doing so later this week unless I get a reply convincing me otherwise.-- BishopOcelot 19:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh and yeah, the flashback in the Pilot is in my opinion one of the handful of weak moments in the entire series. Glad to hear it didn't come from the man.
I made {{ TheWire}}, a footer template. Feel free to add it to all related pages. east . 718 19:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The season covers currently do not have a FU rationale on their image pages, we need to add these in. East718, I know you altered the S3 one form a box to a cover, what was the source of the cover image? -- Opark 77 09:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The only major problem in the article that I see is that some of it is written in the present tense when it all needs to be in the past. My attention span is way too low to fix this all at once, so can some people help out? east . 718 17:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Still some inconsistent tense usage here and there in the minor character descriptions - I'll drop in and fix when I have time. Sooo impressed by the work that's being done here, though of course it's what the show deserves! Zephirine 14:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I noticed you shortened the image captions East, this is fine just wanted to leave a note to explain my thinking. I read in the captioning guideline about readers who scan articles looking at pictures and trying to use captions to get them interested in the content, by giving brief descriptions I was trying to achieve this effect.-- Opark 77 21:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The IDs of the new characters in season four were incorrect. I tweaked the order (and changed the spelling of one name) per HBO press materials and the show itself (I've seen several episodes in advance via my job) to make the caption accurate. Andrewjnyc 03:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that Andrew Levine recently collapsed Broadcast history and DVD release into a section called "overseas". I understand his reasons that the information is repeated elsewhere and can follow his reasoning in removing the sections.
I created the sections as part of an effort being made to bring the article close to the template suggested by wikiproject television (see above discussion). I would like to suggest that instead of removing the DVD release section because the info is in critical response we should remove the info from critical response as it is not appropriate under that heading.
The broadcast history section is likely to grow somewhat given time and users in other countries adding further information. One of the articles aims should be to be comprehensive - if some of the information that it ought to include is better provided by another article then that should be clearly stated with a link to that article and a prose summary of the most important points. I don't think that reasoning that the info is in the episode list is enough to remove it.
Does this make it any clearer what my intentions were Andrew? If you still disagree about the need for these sections I'm happy to leave them ou. Is there a third party out there who has any thoughts?
Finally as a British wikipedian I don't like the assumption that the UK is overseas, for me it's underfoot! -- Opark 77 12:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I used a peer review semi-bot to analyze this article.
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm. I haven't found any instances of this.
east
.
718 18:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas.
east . 718 18:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Personally I think the major character and recurring character sections should be merged. The line between starring roles and important recurring characters is a thin one; for example, right now Carcetti is listed as a major character and Cutty a recurring one, even though they have both appeared in the exact same episodes and had roughly an equal amount of time dedicated to their respective plotlines. They should both just appear together in the same paragraph as season 3 additions. Also, I don't like the word "guest star" because that to me implies a celebrity appearance like you see on a lot of other shows, when the only people to ever appear on the show who have anything close to celebrity status are Method Man, Steve Earle, and some of the city figures mentioned in the casting section, like Robert Ehrlich. So I will probably take out all the uses of "guest star" in the next few days. Andrew Levine 18:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Music samples:
Although this is only listed as a guideline and was defeated in a vote on whether to give it force of policy, having the entire opening theme for every season seems excessive. With the nine images, we have twelve fair-use claims for the page -- more than any featured article does, I believe -- and it is best to play it safe here. I would half-follow the guideline and excerpt 30 seconds for each season's theme, using the audio from about 0:06 to 0:36 (which for each sample gets the vocals of the first verse; this way listeners can compare them better). I also think we should be willing to drop the audio samples entirely if the issue is raised during the FA candidacy. Andrew Levine 02:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
We don't need to include quotes from every single interview David Simon has ever done, or from every review of the show. The bloat of quotes and analysis is starting to make this a slog to read, and the social commentary section is beginning to harangue the reader with Simon's opinions. We're better off with fewer quotes and less commentary. Andrew Levine 22:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The lead has said for a long time that the show is narrated from both points of view. This phrasing has always bothered me as the show is not narrated at all. Is this just a personal thing of mine or does anyone else think the wording needs to be altered?-- Opark 77 00:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Andrew Levine continues to do a great job trimming the fat of the article and improving wording etc. I think the new lead is preferable to the old one. I notice that the Zap2it link was removed because it was dead. The article still works Ok for me: [1] if anyone needs to use that content again.
The following paragraph was also clipped because it is similar to points made elsewhere in the themes section. I wrote it so I'm not going get completely precious about it and re-add it, I just thought I'd be a little bit precious and put it up here to see if anyone thinks it's worthy of going back in: Simon has described the show as a examination of the way Americans live in modern cities and an attempt to examine what he sees as competing American myths — that if you do better than the next man, you will succeed; and that if you are unable to do better if you work hard every day, there is a place for you nonetheless and you will not be betrayed. He believes that the show illustrates that this second myth is now a lie in cities like Baltimore. [1] -- Opark 77 20:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
The link to Ed Burns links to "The Brothers McMullin" director, not the Baltimore ex-homicide detective. Someone oughta fix that. Not the same type of writing at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elleesttrois ( talk • contribs)
I haven't been able to find any internet refs. to all the drug names used on the show (i.e. WMDs, Spider bags, Pandemic, Missletoe). How would y'all feel about adding this as an item in a trivia section?
Aa article on Baltimore slang would be useful. Comic J 16:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The article, and more the whole article, seem to downplay the role of Ed Burns in the show before his death. On the season one commentaries David Simon constantly states that the show was a large collaborative effort between them re-enforcing them as equals rather than Simon the creator and Burns the writer. Should this be rectified? –– Lid( Talk) 04:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Lid recently added a passage about the Wires high score on Metacritic to the critical response section, I have a couple of questions about this. Is metacritic a suitable source for wikipedia? Also I don't think we need to explain how metacritic works in this article - that information is better suited to an article about metacritic. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?-- Opark 77 14:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
To deal with the numerous and varied cast, such as the many levels of the police force, and not enough space to do it in why not use something similar to the templates Law & Order use for their cast?
Template:Lawandorderprosecutors and Template:Lawandorderpolice are what they use and I think we could extend use this for The Wire to create seperate templates for the Police, the Politicians, the Street and the Docks. This avoids the problem of having to only have six names listed when the multi-lkayered concept of The Wire means many characters get left out. Take Ray Cole for example, under the current template he wouldn't be listed however under Homicide squad he would be listed. It also stops debates about character longetivity and whether we should replace them or not.
Thoughts? –– Lid( Talk) 08:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
So we would then only append the templates to the appropriate pages (i.e. only use the docks for S2 episodes)? Perhaps you could make up some examples in your sandbox. How many different te,plates are you thinking of? I think it's important not to have too many characters listed otherwise they become less functional because you have to search through them.-- Opark 77 18:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed someone changing the names in captions to the full names of the characters rather than their common names. I have changed this back because it disrupts the links to the character articles and is unnecessarily verbose. For the main article we should introduce the characters as they are commonly known and then give more detail on their full names in their individual articles. I wonder if there are any arguments for having the full names in the captions?-- Opark 77 08:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we can cut everything from this section after the table. There is already a lot of cited praise in the article and the DVD reviews don't really add much to that. It feels like preening. Andrew Levine 05:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted back a sentence in the lead that had been changed twice by another user (who made other very useful edits). I don't think it accurately represents the sources to state that "The Wire has received critical acclaim for its portrayal of urban life and exploration of sociological themes." Hundreds of TV shows portray life in a city, and almost every current American network drama explores sociological themes to some extent. What the reviews cited in the article state, with consistency, is that the show is realistic in its depiction of urban life, and that the sociological ruminations go deeper than most other TV shows. The user mentioned that not all the reviews praise The Wire for these reasons, which is true (only most of them do), but there is no unanimity implied by "has received critical acclaim." Only that some (a lot, actually) praise has been given by some (many) critics. Andrew Levine 05:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Is "The Wire" a true police procedural? To my mind, it's more of a character driven drama, with some characters who happen to be police officers. From the wiki definition of police procedural: "the police procedural frequently attempts to depict the work of police officers in solving multiple crimes simultaneously". Each season and episode of "The Wire" centers around no singular crime being solved; usually one criminal group or enterprise is being pursued by one police group; usually for a large number of crimes. And the current season (four) centers more around the educational and political worlds, with the nominal "police story" on the back burner. When I think of a "police procedural", I think of "Law and Order" or "CSI", not "The Wire". Weirdoactor 20:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
David Simon doesn't consider it is a police procedural: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3933251 The interview is a few years old but there's no reason to suppose he's changed his mind! Zephirine 14:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Use of the wiki definition of police procedural is a little problematic - that page also lists "The Wire" as a prominent example of the police procedural. Someone feel like removing it? Quadparty 23:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(television)#Proposed_moves_for_episodes_of_The_Wire.. someone has decided to request episode pages for The Wire be moved (without notification I add) thanks/ Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the fact that HBO pre-released the entire season to critics, and the prerelease ended up leaking into the black market is notable enough to deserve a mention. I'm having trouble finding non-blog or non-forum references, however. The Baltimore Sun had an article about the bootleg-and-spoiler fiasco on October 18, but it is no longer linkable from their page. It is currently mirrored at [2] JeffStickney 15:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Where can the version of "Way Down in the Hole" by Domaje be found or purchased? The audio clip that is on the page for the season 4 opening theme states that the song is around four minutes long. Is there an album that was released? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nyghtryder ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
Nonesuch records has released a Wire soundtrack entitled "All the Pieces Matter", which includes above track Theinterior ( talk) 21:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I think we should add "Universally Acclaimed" or some such to the overview, to emphasize just how praised the show is. Funkyvoltron 15:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS to move page, per discussion below. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wire (TV series) → The Wire — The page The Wire currently redirects to the TV series page making the redirect redundant as well as article name consistancy meaning the page should be at The Wire. –– Lid( Talk) 06:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
David Mills, a longtime David Simon collaborator (he has written for Homicide and The Corner as well as the Wire episode " Soft Eyes") has posted some info on season 5 on his blog: [5]. Among the news: The final season will have only 10 episodes; it will supposedly be "the funniest season ever of "The Wire," if you like your humor dark"; Clark Johnson will have a major acting role as a newspaper editor, and will direct the final episode; and McNulty will have a larger role than last season. My question to my fellow editors is, given the source's status as a bona fide Wire insider, can we cite this blog post and use the info in the Season 5 section? Andrew Levine 22:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Any source explaining why season 5 was shortened to 10 episodes? The current source just says it was shortened. Let me say in advance don't respond to give me your theories I can probably guess why too, just would be nice to have an actual source. Aaron Bowen 16:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
A new noticeboard, Wikipedia:Fiction noticeboard, has been created. - Peregrine Fisher 18:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The following request to move a page has been added to Wikipedia:Requested moves as an uncontroversial move, but this has been contested by one or more people. Any discussion on the issue should continue here. If a full request is not lodged within five days of this request being contested, the request will be removed from WP:RM. — Stemonitis 12:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I've just removed the Politicians image recently added by Lid (Great job on the image stack by the way). I think the edit summary when the image was added stated correctly that the image was not the best option for the politicians. I think until a better alternative comes around then no image should be added to the article.
Even if an alternative is available we should think twice before adding more image to the main article. The characters section is already quite long but the images still manage to out stretch it on my screen. I think we should think about cutting back the images - having one of the school characters or the docks is not essential and only invites the addition of further images to represent the politicians, the media and other groups. As it stands a fifth image seems like too much non-free content to me.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 21:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to send out a "thank you" to everyone involved who contributed to this fantastic article. This is the most in-depth overall look at The Wire anywhere on the Web. And I can certainly see why so many people would be dedicated enough to create an article of this size, as The Wire is definitely the best show on television of the past few decades. Once again, "thank you" to everyone involved. - Sdornan ( talk) 19:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The word "sociological" in the lead has been changed to "social" several times now, so I thought that my original word choice deserves justification. I can understand the desire to want to use a two-syllable (in American English) word in place of a six-syllable one when their meanings are apparently similar. But there's a huge gap in meaning here.
If we talk about The Wire exploring "social themes" we mean that the plotlines of the show have touched on issues affecting society, like the drug trade, homelessness, political corruption, public education, etc. This is a true statement, but it is also unremarkable, as nearly all TV dramas in the present day incorporate social issues to an extent. You can find important social issues discussed in Degrassi if that's all you're looking for.
However, when we say that the show is sociological in its scope, we are talking about the interactions between different groups within society, the manner in which these groups organize themselves, and the extent to which individual choices can (and can not) affect society. These are not only themes explicitly intended by the show's creators, they are also (as the sentence in the lead says) mentioned by critical reviews of the show. Thus it is more accurate, relevant, and unique to say that sociological themes are considered, by published viewers of The Wire, to be essential to its quality. Andrew Levine ( talk) 18:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if we should agree a spoiler policy before season 5 begins airing. I know that last year we didn't post spoilers until episodes had aired on HBO proper (as opposed to on demand). What are everyones thoughts about handling spoilers this year?-- Opark 77 ( talk) 23:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Good lookin' on the new poster!– FunkyVoltron talk 19:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The article states that HBO "commissioned a fifth and final season consisting of 13 episodes, but which was later reduced to ten." Did HBO reduce its episode order or was this a creative decision by the producers; either way, this should be made clear in the text. EnemyOfTheState ( talk) 01:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I see Nadum215 just added a line about the leaks of episodes to the intro. It strikes me that this would be better for a different section, perhaps "Broadcasters." I haven't moved it yet, as I'd like to get some thoughts before moving it. Thoughts? Veritek83 ( talk) 23:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
and so it begins...
After the finale airing we had our first misguided change to the lead sentence - framing the series as a whole in the past tense. i.e. The Wire was a TV series rather than The Wire is a TV series. The WP:TV guidelines are clear on this issue - a TV series that has stopped airing new episodes is still a TV series and does not somehow become past tense as a consequence. When reverting this kind of edit in future I think the edit summary below would be useful:
We say "is" not "was" with regard to completed TV series as per the [[WP:TV|television article guidelines]]. See discussion [[Talk:The Wire (TV series)#Is NOT was|here]].
Hope this helps.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Here is a userpage notice for editors who make this kind of change:
== The Wire and tense == Your edit to ''[[The Wire (TV series)|The Wire]]'' has been reverted. We say "is" not "was" with regard to completed TV series as per the [[WP:TV|television article guidelines]] - the show is still a TV series even if it is not airing new episodes. See discussion [[Talk:The Wire (TV series)#Is NOT was|here]].--~~~~
Again hope this is useful.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Today has seen a rash of edits across the character articles where the last_cause variable in the infobox has been altered to reflect the character's ending. However, it is my view that this information is not relevant in the infobox and often leads to long and poorly written shorthand summaries of their ending. The ending should be in the biography and should cite a source. What are others thoughts on this? Already when I have removed this information it has been restored by IP address editors. I am loathe to edit was over this and would like to aim to test consensus here and then work to improve the articles to the point where such shorthand summaries are un-necessary because the ending is detailed in the bio.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
if you look @ this article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/14/obama-gloves-off/ (search for the wire or omar) obama comments that he enjoys the wire and his favorite character (like most viewers) is Omar. should this be added to the article or not? i think it's kind of notable, but i'm biased as a fan of the show and someone who was already going to vote for obama. would it be more appropriate to include on the senator's article? or not at all? 65.43.213.22 ( talk) 11:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
The infobox lists the fifth season starring cast at present which is 24 actors. Now that the season is over I wonder if it would be more appropriate to list the entire starring cast (36 performers) or perhaps only those who starred for multiple seasons (23 performers). Does anyone have any thoughts on this?-- Opark 77 ( talk) 11:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Malc82 see Is NOT was above for more on this. It is very much still a TV series. It was a currently airing HBO drama but IS still a TV series even if it is not currently airing. With regard to the starring cast I'll get that done today with this small consensus.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 15:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. I miscounted there were actually only 22.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 15:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I am writing an article about all of the series which are in the same shared reality as this one through spin-offs and crossovers. I could use a little help expanding the article since it is currently extremely dense and a bit jumbled with some sentence structures being extremely repetitive. I would like to be able to put this article into article space soon. Any and all help in writing the article would be appreciated, even a comment or two on the talk page would help. Please give it a read through, also please do not comment here since I do not have all of the series on my watch list. - LA @ 17:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
J.D. Williams. who plays Bodie also played Kenny Wangler in OZ. In the scene where he first meets Cutty Cutty asks him how his brother Kenny is doing. Which Bodie answers Kenny's been dead. It's kinda thin but I think it was David Simon making an in-joke by connecting the two HBO series (the two characters have different names but they could have different fathers especially considering neither of them have any contact with their fathers). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weonk ( talk • contribs) 18:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I can appreciate that The Wire does not idolize police forces as some other media does, but its portrayal is still significantly sanitized. Reading the article, it's easy to get the impression that little or no whitewashing of United States law enforcement occurs in this series.
I posted this in Wikipedia:Requests for expansion
These sections are almost always terrible on wikipedia, so this one isn't alone. Why is this section even necessary? The description of the show, along with the origins section should be more than enough. The writing in this secion resembles criticism/fancruft/review and is almost always non neutral and non encyclopedic. It should probably just be nuked. SpencerThiel ( talk) 03:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone have a list of characters that had appeared on both shows? While watching reruns of Homicide - Life on the Street, I have seen at least 4 characters from that show appear as characters on the Wire. I can list them here if needed, but I was hoping someone had that info... Michael.Urban ( talk) 13:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I understand that referencing is the core of Wikipedia articles, but I think it's a little bit out of control here. Look at the season summaries, especially for 4 and 5.
I'm not so much questioning the need to reference, but I'm just making the simple point that at first glance it looks like a mess. The content is great, but it doesn't look good. It's like a site with "busy" design.. animated gifs, flash, etc. that is just plain distracting. I imagine new users would be turned off.
Now for where I may be attacked.. but is it really necessary to reference basic points on a television show? When is it necessary to reference the episode itself and/or the episode guide on HBO?
Take the murder of Bodie. Many thought it was Michael Lee, and it was question of debate. No problem, link to HBO's guide to show it was O-Dog.
What about the drug bust of Marlo's shipment in season five? There are five footnotes for that.. to episodes and the HBO episode guide. What does this add to the article? Is anyone going to question that it happened?
If you're going to reference that, what else needs to be referenced? If in an article you say Marlo is African-American, does there need to be footnotes to HBO's profile of Marlo, all the episodes Marlo appeared in, etc.?
Sorry if this is covering basic Wikipedia points. I just don't agree with it, and back to my original point, it doesn't look good. Thank You
There are plenty of examples of over-referencing. Here are just some, from five consecutive sentences:
In fact, all of the above (the casting for season one) could no doubt be covered by a single footnote. Yet there are at present 15 in five sentences. That's out of control! -- jbmurray ( talk • contribs) 10:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
We need to seriously edit out the spoilers from some of the top of these Wire articles. Every character has how they left the series in their infobox, and there are spoilers without warning elsewhere. I found out what happened to Stringer when I looked him at as I was starting season two and it seriously ruined season 3 for me. We should remove all spoilers from infoboxes and precontents introductions. 93.97.89.55 ( talk) 22:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Came across this short series on IMDb [8]. Same writer, same characters, yet no mention of this in either the main article or the list of episodes. What exactly is this? A collection of specials? I reckon it deserves mention in the article at the very least. -- MiG ( talk) 18:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea, but perhaps we should start with pages on the seasons.
This article is horribly over-referenced. -- jbmurray ( talk • contribs) 10:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Just a note that all the HBO web site pages related to the series are no longer available and so are totally useless as references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.56.150 ( talk) 11:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
In the summary here, it says that Carcetti was elected governor - I thought he just won the democratic primary to enter the race as democratic candidate? Pexise ( talk) 12:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the earlier discussion Talk:The_Wire#Question_about_references and Talk:The_Wire#over-referenced, I plan on doing a mass removal of the references of plot summtaries per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Television/Style_guidelines#Plot_section:
Plot summaries do not normally require citations; the television show itself is the source, as the accuracy of the plot description can be verified by watching the episode in question. An exception to this rule may be shows containing plot details that are unclear or open to interpretation, in which case the different interpretations should be sourced to reliable sources.
This page's load time is completely unacceptable and the guideline clearly states that these refs are not necessary. However, since it is such a big change to a good article, I will wait to see if anyone objects. Thanks. -- Omarcheeseboro ( talk) 17:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Since we have loads of articles related to the show I thought it might be a good idea to co-ordinate management of them using a centralised to do list.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 17:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Can someone define what the title means?
The term 'The wire' refers to the phone tap that the detectives use in the series to gain the upper hand on the Barksdale empire. I suppose it also has allusions to being on the wire i.e. a tight rope as in they are really under pressure to crack the case because of all the pressure being put on them from above. Buy yeah it is a wierd title isn't it... a good one though in my opinion.
Along with the wire tap and the meaning of everything coming "down to the wire" there is the general idea of everything coming down through the grape vine: "I heard it on the wire." This is suggestive of the interrelated nature of the shows plotlines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.252.111.3 ( talk) 03:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
There is also the military use of the term, used to signify the defensive perimeter of a position. "outside the wire" implies an area outside the unit's control; unfamiliar. the series involves groups of people interacting with worlds outside of their "wire". Theinterior ( talk) 05:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I have heard it been suggested (I don't remember by whom) that the title is a reference to the fact that the show itself resembles an actual physical wire (like a piece of string) running through the city of Baltimore, connecting all of its various facets (or institutions) and revealing how they relate to, or parallel, one another.
The statement mentioned above is true and was detailed in both documentaries in the extras' segments of the DVD Box Sets from seasons 4 and 5. Both David Simon and Ed Burns talk about that "The Wire" was first portrayed as a wire tap (the BPD trying to take down the Barksdale Organization) and eventually, because of the specific institutions which Simon and Burns illustrate, "The Wire" became something else entirely, it became the string which tied Baltimore together, from the schools to the docks, drug kingpins to cops, etc. Mike D ( talk) 17:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeDalbey ( talk • contribs) 13:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
"The seasons are twelve or thirteen full-hour episodes in length."
It was my understanding that 12 episodes was the norm, the debut season only having one more because it included a pilot episode. Is this the case? Gram 12:59, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think there are a set amount to be honest one season has had 13 two have had 12 I don't think there is a "rule" that any future series will not be able to have 13 or more. Many TV series have different numbers of episodes in series through out their commission.
Season four has 13 episodes, so "twelve or thirteen" is correct and should stay as is. Andrewjnyc 03:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
But season five has only ten episodes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.158.75.191 ( talk) 06:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
does anyone want to attempt to create individual wiki pages for each episode?
I've set up a character list to include character summary's and lists of appaearances as per other show articles. I've tried to leave a list of all starring characters here on the main page but I think I missed some of them. -- Opark 77 14:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I just removed prodigal from the description of Nick. Prodigal(wastefully or recklessly extravagant) would seem to be a better adjective for Ziggy. Veritek83 17:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking of season 6, will there be a new season soon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.75.6 ( talk) 04:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I notice that Jeff moved the spoiler tag up to exclude the character list - this seems reasonable. Just to explain why I agreed with it including the character list before. I noticed on one TV program article that made it to featured status it was suggested that the list of actors contained spoilers because it gives the information to first time viewers that certain characters will be leaving the show. On this article they moved the list down so it was not one of the first things seen. Wish I could remember which show it was! In summary I have no problem for it just covering the synopses but wanted to add a rationale for why the spoiler tag might include the character list also. -- Opark 77 10:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I think it may be worth restructuring the article around the television project guidelines. The main sections they suggest are:
What do other editors think about these suggestions?-- Opark 77 01:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of going by Arrested Development's layout, as it's already an FA, while borrowing a little from Lost (a GA). I'd go:
We should hold off on restructuring until we get a consensus. east . 718 01:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Bravo- I'm glad to see this series getting some of the attention it deserves.
The note in episode structure about all music being ambient except for the end of the season finales is not completely accurate. In particular, I can think of three instances:
1. In season 1, around episode 6, when Avon, Stinkum, and Stringer Bell are walking through the low-rises on their way to tell D that they "think he has a snitch in the house", music is played and the scene even features slow motion.
2. In episode 11 of the second Season, Greek music plays during the 10 minutes or so preceeding Sobatka's fateful meeting with The Greek and Vondas.
3. During the cold intro of one of the Season 2 episodes, the Cash song featuring the chorus "I keep a cold watch on this heart of mine" plays while during an assortment of shots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BishopOcelot ( talk • contribs)
{{
cite episode}}
: Empty citation (
help) for citing the episodes which contain these musical examples.--
Opark 77 22:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Great work is being done here, but I have one suggestion; let's allow each character their own page. The character page will get extremely lengthy, and it matches the format of the Sopranos.
I personally will help with this, and will begin doing so later this week unless I get a reply convincing me otherwise.-- BishopOcelot 19:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh and yeah, the flashback in the Pilot is in my opinion one of the handful of weak moments in the entire series. Glad to hear it didn't come from the man.
I made {{ TheWire}}, a footer template. Feel free to add it to all related pages. east . 718 19:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The season covers currently do not have a FU rationale on their image pages, we need to add these in. East718, I know you altered the S3 one form a box to a cover, what was the source of the cover image? -- Opark 77 09:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The only major problem in the article that I see is that some of it is written in the present tense when it all needs to be in the past. My attention span is way too low to fix this all at once, so can some people help out? east . 718 17:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Still some inconsistent tense usage here and there in the minor character descriptions - I'll drop in and fix when I have time. Sooo impressed by the work that's being done here, though of course it's what the show deserves! Zephirine 14:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I noticed you shortened the image captions East, this is fine just wanted to leave a note to explain my thinking. I read in the captioning guideline about readers who scan articles looking at pictures and trying to use captions to get them interested in the content, by giving brief descriptions I was trying to achieve this effect.-- Opark 77 21:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The IDs of the new characters in season four were incorrect. I tweaked the order (and changed the spelling of one name) per HBO press materials and the show itself (I've seen several episodes in advance via my job) to make the caption accurate. Andrewjnyc 03:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that Andrew Levine recently collapsed Broadcast history and DVD release into a section called "overseas". I understand his reasons that the information is repeated elsewhere and can follow his reasoning in removing the sections.
I created the sections as part of an effort being made to bring the article close to the template suggested by wikiproject television (see above discussion). I would like to suggest that instead of removing the DVD release section because the info is in critical response we should remove the info from critical response as it is not appropriate under that heading.
The broadcast history section is likely to grow somewhat given time and users in other countries adding further information. One of the articles aims should be to be comprehensive - if some of the information that it ought to include is better provided by another article then that should be clearly stated with a link to that article and a prose summary of the most important points. I don't think that reasoning that the info is in the episode list is enough to remove it.
Does this make it any clearer what my intentions were Andrew? If you still disagree about the need for these sections I'm happy to leave them ou. Is there a third party out there who has any thoughts?
Finally as a British wikipedian I don't like the assumption that the UK is overseas, for me it's underfoot! -- Opark 77 12:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I used a peer review semi-bot to analyze this article.
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm. I haven't found any instances of this.
east
.
718 18:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas.
east . 718 18:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Personally I think the major character and recurring character sections should be merged. The line between starring roles and important recurring characters is a thin one; for example, right now Carcetti is listed as a major character and Cutty a recurring one, even though they have both appeared in the exact same episodes and had roughly an equal amount of time dedicated to their respective plotlines. They should both just appear together in the same paragraph as season 3 additions. Also, I don't like the word "guest star" because that to me implies a celebrity appearance like you see on a lot of other shows, when the only people to ever appear on the show who have anything close to celebrity status are Method Man, Steve Earle, and some of the city figures mentioned in the casting section, like Robert Ehrlich. So I will probably take out all the uses of "guest star" in the next few days. Andrew Levine 18:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Music samples:
Although this is only listed as a guideline and was defeated in a vote on whether to give it force of policy, having the entire opening theme for every season seems excessive. With the nine images, we have twelve fair-use claims for the page -- more than any featured article does, I believe -- and it is best to play it safe here. I would half-follow the guideline and excerpt 30 seconds for each season's theme, using the audio from about 0:06 to 0:36 (which for each sample gets the vocals of the first verse; this way listeners can compare them better). I also think we should be willing to drop the audio samples entirely if the issue is raised during the FA candidacy. Andrew Levine 02:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
We don't need to include quotes from every single interview David Simon has ever done, or from every review of the show. The bloat of quotes and analysis is starting to make this a slog to read, and the social commentary section is beginning to harangue the reader with Simon's opinions. We're better off with fewer quotes and less commentary. Andrew Levine 22:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The lead has said for a long time that the show is narrated from both points of view. This phrasing has always bothered me as the show is not narrated at all. Is this just a personal thing of mine or does anyone else think the wording needs to be altered?-- Opark 77 00:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Andrew Levine continues to do a great job trimming the fat of the article and improving wording etc. I think the new lead is preferable to the old one. I notice that the Zap2it link was removed because it was dead. The article still works Ok for me: [1] if anyone needs to use that content again.
The following paragraph was also clipped because it is similar to points made elsewhere in the themes section. I wrote it so I'm not going get completely precious about it and re-add it, I just thought I'd be a little bit precious and put it up here to see if anyone thinks it's worthy of going back in: Simon has described the show as a examination of the way Americans live in modern cities and an attempt to examine what he sees as competing American myths — that if you do better than the next man, you will succeed; and that if you are unable to do better if you work hard every day, there is a place for you nonetheless and you will not be betrayed. He believes that the show illustrates that this second myth is now a lie in cities like Baltimore. [1] -- Opark 77 20:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
The link to Ed Burns links to "The Brothers McMullin" director, not the Baltimore ex-homicide detective. Someone oughta fix that. Not the same type of writing at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elleesttrois ( talk • contribs)
I haven't been able to find any internet refs. to all the drug names used on the show (i.e. WMDs, Spider bags, Pandemic, Missletoe). How would y'all feel about adding this as an item in a trivia section?
Aa article on Baltimore slang would be useful. Comic J 16:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The article, and more the whole article, seem to downplay the role of Ed Burns in the show before his death. On the season one commentaries David Simon constantly states that the show was a large collaborative effort between them re-enforcing them as equals rather than Simon the creator and Burns the writer. Should this be rectified? –– Lid( Talk) 04:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Lid recently added a passage about the Wires high score on Metacritic to the critical response section, I have a couple of questions about this. Is metacritic a suitable source for wikipedia? Also I don't think we need to explain how metacritic works in this article - that information is better suited to an article about metacritic. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?-- Opark 77 14:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
To deal with the numerous and varied cast, such as the many levels of the police force, and not enough space to do it in why not use something similar to the templates Law & Order use for their cast?
Template:Lawandorderprosecutors and Template:Lawandorderpolice are what they use and I think we could extend use this for The Wire to create seperate templates for the Police, the Politicians, the Street and the Docks. This avoids the problem of having to only have six names listed when the multi-lkayered concept of The Wire means many characters get left out. Take Ray Cole for example, under the current template he wouldn't be listed however under Homicide squad he would be listed. It also stops debates about character longetivity and whether we should replace them or not.
Thoughts? –– Lid( Talk) 08:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
So we would then only append the templates to the appropriate pages (i.e. only use the docks for S2 episodes)? Perhaps you could make up some examples in your sandbox. How many different te,plates are you thinking of? I think it's important not to have too many characters listed otherwise they become less functional because you have to search through them.-- Opark 77 18:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed someone changing the names in captions to the full names of the characters rather than their common names. I have changed this back because it disrupts the links to the character articles and is unnecessarily verbose. For the main article we should introduce the characters as they are commonly known and then give more detail on their full names in their individual articles. I wonder if there are any arguments for having the full names in the captions?-- Opark 77 08:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we can cut everything from this section after the table. There is already a lot of cited praise in the article and the DVD reviews don't really add much to that. It feels like preening. Andrew Levine 05:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted back a sentence in the lead that had been changed twice by another user (who made other very useful edits). I don't think it accurately represents the sources to state that "The Wire has received critical acclaim for its portrayal of urban life and exploration of sociological themes." Hundreds of TV shows portray life in a city, and almost every current American network drama explores sociological themes to some extent. What the reviews cited in the article state, with consistency, is that the show is realistic in its depiction of urban life, and that the sociological ruminations go deeper than most other TV shows. The user mentioned that not all the reviews praise The Wire for these reasons, which is true (only most of them do), but there is no unanimity implied by "has received critical acclaim." Only that some (a lot, actually) praise has been given by some (many) critics. Andrew Levine 05:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Is "The Wire" a true police procedural? To my mind, it's more of a character driven drama, with some characters who happen to be police officers. From the wiki definition of police procedural: "the police procedural frequently attempts to depict the work of police officers in solving multiple crimes simultaneously". Each season and episode of "The Wire" centers around no singular crime being solved; usually one criminal group or enterprise is being pursued by one police group; usually for a large number of crimes. And the current season (four) centers more around the educational and political worlds, with the nominal "police story" on the back burner. When I think of a "police procedural", I think of "Law and Order" or "CSI", not "The Wire". Weirdoactor 20:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
David Simon doesn't consider it is a police procedural: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3933251 The interview is a few years old but there's no reason to suppose he's changed his mind! Zephirine 14:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Use of the wiki definition of police procedural is a little problematic - that page also lists "The Wire" as a prominent example of the police procedural. Someone feel like removing it? Quadparty 23:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(television)#Proposed_moves_for_episodes_of_The_Wire.. someone has decided to request episode pages for The Wire be moved (without notification I add) thanks/ Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the fact that HBO pre-released the entire season to critics, and the prerelease ended up leaking into the black market is notable enough to deserve a mention. I'm having trouble finding non-blog or non-forum references, however. The Baltimore Sun had an article about the bootleg-and-spoiler fiasco on October 18, but it is no longer linkable from their page. It is currently mirrored at [2] JeffStickney 15:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Where can the version of "Way Down in the Hole" by Domaje be found or purchased? The audio clip that is on the page for the season 4 opening theme states that the song is around four minutes long. Is there an album that was released? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nyghtryder ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
Nonesuch records has released a Wire soundtrack entitled "All the Pieces Matter", which includes above track Theinterior ( talk) 21:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I think we should add "Universally Acclaimed" or some such to the overview, to emphasize just how praised the show is. Funkyvoltron 15:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS to move page, per discussion below. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wire (TV series) → The Wire — The page The Wire currently redirects to the TV series page making the redirect redundant as well as article name consistancy meaning the page should be at The Wire. –– Lid( Talk) 06:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
David Mills, a longtime David Simon collaborator (he has written for Homicide and The Corner as well as the Wire episode " Soft Eyes") has posted some info on season 5 on his blog: [5]. Among the news: The final season will have only 10 episodes; it will supposedly be "the funniest season ever of "The Wire," if you like your humor dark"; Clark Johnson will have a major acting role as a newspaper editor, and will direct the final episode; and McNulty will have a larger role than last season. My question to my fellow editors is, given the source's status as a bona fide Wire insider, can we cite this blog post and use the info in the Season 5 section? Andrew Levine 22:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Any source explaining why season 5 was shortened to 10 episodes? The current source just says it was shortened. Let me say in advance don't respond to give me your theories I can probably guess why too, just would be nice to have an actual source. Aaron Bowen 16:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
A new noticeboard, Wikipedia:Fiction noticeboard, has been created. - Peregrine Fisher 18:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The following request to move a page has been added to Wikipedia:Requested moves as an uncontroversial move, but this has been contested by one or more people. Any discussion on the issue should continue here. If a full request is not lodged within five days of this request being contested, the request will be removed from WP:RM. — Stemonitis 12:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I've just removed the Politicians image recently added by Lid (Great job on the image stack by the way). I think the edit summary when the image was added stated correctly that the image was not the best option for the politicians. I think until a better alternative comes around then no image should be added to the article.
Even if an alternative is available we should think twice before adding more image to the main article. The characters section is already quite long but the images still manage to out stretch it on my screen. I think we should think about cutting back the images - having one of the school characters or the docks is not essential and only invites the addition of further images to represent the politicians, the media and other groups. As it stands a fifth image seems like too much non-free content to me.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 21:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to send out a "thank you" to everyone involved who contributed to this fantastic article. This is the most in-depth overall look at The Wire anywhere on the Web. And I can certainly see why so many people would be dedicated enough to create an article of this size, as The Wire is definitely the best show on television of the past few decades. Once again, "thank you" to everyone involved. - Sdornan ( talk) 19:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The word "sociological" in the lead has been changed to "social" several times now, so I thought that my original word choice deserves justification. I can understand the desire to want to use a two-syllable (in American English) word in place of a six-syllable one when their meanings are apparently similar. But there's a huge gap in meaning here.
If we talk about The Wire exploring "social themes" we mean that the plotlines of the show have touched on issues affecting society, like the drug trade, homelessness, political corruption, public education, etc. This is a true statement, but it is also unremarkable, as nearly all TV dramas in the present day incorporate social issues to an extent. You can find important social issues discussed in Degrassi if that's all you're looking for.
However, when we say that the show is sociological in its scope, we are talking about the interactions between different groups within society, the manner in which these groups organize themselves, and the extent to which individual choices can (and can not) affect society. These are not only themes explicitly intended by the show's creators, they are also (as the sentence in the lead says) mentioned by critical reviews of the show. Thus it is more accurate, relevant, and unique to say that sociological themes are considered, by published viewers of The Wire, to be essential to its quality. Andrew Levine ( talk) 18:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if we should agree a spoiler policy before season 5 begins airing. I know that last year we didn't post spoilers until episodes had aired on HBO proper (as opposed to on demand). What are everyones thoughts about handling spoilers this year?-- Opark 77 ( talk) 23:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Good lookin' on the new poster!– FunkyVoltron talk 19:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The article states that HBO "commissioned a fifth and final season consisting of 13 episodes, but which was later reduced to ten." Did HBO reduce its episode order or was this a creative decision by the producers; either way, this should be made clear in the text. EnemyOfTheState ( talk) 01:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I see Nadum215 just added a line about the leaks of episodes to the intro. It strikes me that this would be better for a different section, perhaps "Broadcasters." I haven't moved it yet, as I'd like to get some thoughts before moving it. Thoughts? Veritek83 ( talk) 23:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
and so it begins...
After the finale airing we had our first misguided change to the lead sentence - framing the series as a whole in the past tense. i.e. The Wire was a TV series rather than The Wire is a TV series. The WP:TV guidelines are clear on this issue - a TV series that has stopped airing new episodes is still a TV series and does not somehow become past tense as a consequence. When reverting this kind of edit in future I think the edit summary below would be useful:
We say "is" not "was" with regard to completed TV series as per the [[WP:TV|television article guidelines]]. See discussion [[Talk:The Wire (TV series)#Is NOT was|here]].
Hope this helps.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Here is a userpage notice for editors who make this kind of change:
== The Wire and tense == Your edit to ''[[The Wire (TV series)|The Wire]]'' has been reverted. We say "is" not "was" with regard to completed TV series as per the [[WP:TV|television article guidelines]] - the show is still a TV series even if it is not airing new episodes. See discussion [[Talk:The Wire (TV series)#Is NOT was|here]].--~~~~
Again hope this is useful.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Today has seen a rash of edits across the character articles where the last_cause variable in the infobox has been altered to reflect the character's ending. However, it is my view that this information is not relevant in the infobox and often leads to long and poorly written shorthand summaries of their ending. The ending should be in the biography and should cite a source. What are others thoughts on this? Already when I have removed this information it has been restored by IP address editors. I am loathe to edit was over this and would like to aim to test consensus here and then work to improve the articles to the point where such shorthand summaries are un-necessary because the ending is detailed in the bio.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 13:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
if you look @ this article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/14/obama-gloves-off/ (search for the wire or omar) obama comments that he enjoys the wire and his favorite character (like most viewers) is Omar. should this be added to the article or not? i think it's kind of notable, but i'm biased as a fan of the show and someone who was already going to vote for obama. would it be more appropriate to include on the senator's article? or not at all? 65.43.213.22 ( talk) 11:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
The infobox lists the fifth season starring cast at present which is 24 actors. Now that the season is over I wonder if it would be more appropriate to list the entire starring cast (36 performers) or perhaps only those who starred for multiple seasons (23 performers). Does anyone have any thoughts on this?-- Opark 77 ( talk) 11:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Malc82 see Is NOT was above for more on this. It is very much still a TV series. It was a currently airing HBO drama but IS still a TV series even if it is not currently airing. With regard to the starring cast I'll get that done today with this small consensus.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 15:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. I miscounted there were actually only 22.-- Opark 77 ( talk) 15:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I am writing an article about all of the series which are in the same shared reality as this one through spin-offs and crossovers. I could use a little help expanding the article since it is currently extremely dense and a bit jumbled with some sentence structures being extremely repetitive. I would like to be able to put this article into article space soon. Any and all help in writing the article would be appreciated, even a comment or two on the talk page would help. Please give it a read through, also please do not comment here since I do not have all of the series on my watch list. - LA @ 17:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
J.D. Williams. who plays Bodie also played Kenny Wangler in OZ. In the scene where he first meets Cutty Cutty asks him how his brother Kenny is doing. Which Bodie answers Kenny's been dead. It's kinda thin but I think it was David Simon making an in-joke by connecting the two HBO series (the two characters have different names but they could have different fathers especially considering neither of them have any contact with their fathers). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weonk ( talk • contribs) 18:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I can appreciate that The Wire does not idolize police forces as some other media does, but its portrayal is still significantly sanitized. Reading the article, it's easy to get the impression that little or no whitewashing of United States law enforcement occurs in this series.
I posted this in Wikipedia:Requests for expansion
These sections are almost always terrible on wikipedia, so this one isn't alone. Why is this section even necessary? The description of the show, along with the origins section should be more than enough. The writing in this secion resembles criticism/fancruft/review and is almost always non neutral and non encyclopedic. It should probably just be nuked. SpencerThiel ( talk) 03:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone have a list of characters that had appeared on both shows? While watching reruns of Homicide - Life on the Street, I have seen at least 4 characters from that show appear as characters on the Wire. I can list them here if needed, but I was hoping someone had that info... Michael.Urban ( talk) 13:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I understand that referencing is the core of Wikipedia articles, but I think it's a little bit out of control here. Look at the season summaries, especially for 4 and 5.
I'm not so much questioning the need to reference, but I'm just making the simple point that at first glance it looks like a mess. The content is great, but it doesn't look good. It's like a site with "busy" design.. animated gifs, flash, etc. that is just plain distracting. I imagine new users would be turned off.
Now for where I may be attacked.. but is it really necessary to reference basic points on a television show? When is it necessary to reference the episode itself and/or the episode guide on HBO?
Take the murder of Bodie. Many thought it was Michael Lee, and it was question of debate. No problem, link to HBO's guide to show it was O-Dog.
What about the drug bust of Marlo's shipment in season five? There are five footnotes for that.. to episodes and the HBO episode guide. What does this add to the article? Is anyone going to question that it happened?
If you're going to reference that, what else needs to be referenced? If in an article you say Marlo is African-American, does there need to be footnotes to HBO's profile of Marlo, all the episodes Marlo appeared in, etc.?
Sorry if this is covering basic Wikipedia points. I just don't agree with it, and back to my original point, it doesn't look good. Thank You
There are plenty of examples of over-referencing. Here are just some, from five consecutive sentences:
In fact, all of the above (the casting for season one) could no doubt be covered by a single footnote. Yet there are at present 15 in five sentences. That's out of control! -- jbmurray ( talk • contribs) 10:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
We need to seriously edit out the spoilers from some of the top of these Wire articles. Every character has how they left the series in their infobox, and there are spoilers without warning elsewhere. I found out what happened to Stringer when I looked him at as I was starting season two and it seriously ruined season 3 for me. We should remove all spoilers from infoboxes and precontents introductions. 93.97.89.55 ( talk) 22:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Came across this short series on IMDb [8]. Same writer, same characters, yet no mention of this in either the main article or the list of episodes. What exactly is this? A collection of specials? I reckon it deserves mention in the article at the very least. -- MiG ( talk) 18:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea, but perhaps we should start with pages on the seasons.
This article is horribly over-referenced. -- jbmurray ( talk • contribs) 10:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Just a note that all the HBO web site pages related to the series are no longer available and so are totally useless as references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.56.150 ( talk) 11:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
In the summary here, it says that Carcetti was elected governor - I thought he just won the democratic primary to enter the race as democratic candidate? Pexise ( talk) 12:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the earlier discussion Talk:The_Wire#Question_about_references and Talk:The_Wire#over-referenced, I plan on doing a mass removal of the references of plot summtaries per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Television/Style_guidelines#Plot_section:
Plot summaries do not normally require citations; the television show itself is the source, as the accuracy of the plot description can be verified by watching the episode in question. An exception to this rule may be shows containing plot details that are unclear or open to interpretation, in which case the different interpretations should be sourced to reliable sources.
This page's load time is completely unacceptable and the guideline clearly states that these refs are not necessary. However, since it is such a big change to a good article, I will wait to see if anyone objects. Thanks. -- Omarcheeseboro ( talk) 17:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)