The Police kerfluffles
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[edit] Introduction
Most kerfluffles in Police fandom have come from the general fan community, as the fan-fiction community is too small to disagree with each other over much of anything.
[edit] Sting fans vs. Stewart fans
The "Sting vs. Stewart" wars have waged endlessly since the band's last official concert together in 1986. These battles have continued repeatedly across various on-line communities including Ask Uncle Ian, The Police xmission mailing list, StingUs, sting.com, and www.stewartcopeland.net. Many of these arguments stem from discussion of the relative importance of the band members to the success and sound of their music, and also Sting's decision to dissolve the band in order to persue a solo career. There have also been disagreements over the treatment of various fan groups by the official fan club organizations.(sockii)
- On November 9, 2001, The Boston Herald published an interview with Stewart Copeland about his new band Oysterhead. He angered many Sting fans with his comments:
"Up until recently I was maneuvering and cajoling (for a reunion) and Sting would always say, 'Well, never say never.' That's because he's a tease. Then I met Les and Trey and now I couldn't give a (expletive) about the Police."[1]
Fans on The Police xmission mailing list and elsewhere would argue over these comments and the relative worth of Oysterhead and Sting's solo work for months afterward.[2]
- In early February of 2007, when a press conference at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles was announced where the band would appear after their Grammy Award performance, sting.com announced a contest where Legacy members of the site would be elligible to win one of 20 passes to attend the conference. Several members of the www.stewartcopeland.net forum were upset by this perceived bias against Stewart and Andy fans, who would not have had reason to join sting.com before, and worried if this would reflect on the entire attitude of the fan club organizations throughout the (expected, at this point) world tour.[3],[4]. Some members of sting.com argued back that this was only fair after having paid for their fanclub memberships for many years, and that it wasn't their fault that Andy and Stewart fans did not have their own organized fan clubs. The matter was eventually resolved when Giovanni, webmaster of stewartcopeland.net, announced that he had received two (eventually, four) passes to the event to give away to members of the forum.[5]
[edit] The Not-So-Official Official Website
- On July 13, 2006, a member of the Ask Uncle Ian website posted about discovering a new website under development at www.theofficialpolicesite.com[6] Although little on the site was open at that time except a store and a messageboard, it appeared to exist as part of Miles Copeland's own webdomain so most were quick to believe it was the real thing. There was some debate about the design of the site as compared to many unofficial ones out there, and the fact that the shop was open before any other real content.[7]
- On August 9, 2006, the site disappeared with nothing but a notice that "The Official Police Site is finalizing the upgrades. It will be launching shortly." Some members were concerned about what this might mean regarding merchandise they'd already ordered from the store and had yet to receive.[8]
- On August 28, 2006, after members of www.stewartcopeland.net discussed the site and the problems they were encountering with orders placed through there, Stewart Copeland himself posted that he and Andy had shut the site down as it was not in fact an official site.[9]
- When this news was reposted on Ask Uncle Ian, a significant fanwank exploded between those who felt burned by the site and its false claims, and those who supported Miles Copeland and did not believe he would have created the site without justification. These supporters argued that no one should have ordered merchandise from the site before an official launch, though the reverse argument was that the site should not have accepted anyone's money if they were not ready and equipped to fulfill orders.[10]
[edit] Sock puppets, wanks, and Munchausen by Internet cases
See also Ask Uncle Ian
[edit] katieh5584
In early 2006, after Stewart's appearance on the BBC reality competition show Just the Two of Us, there was a moderate influx of new members to stewartcopeland.net including katieh5584, who claimed to be a fan from the United Kingdom. She began posting with great frequency, mostly questioning when Stewart would appear on-site to answer one of her posts and criticizing the site mod for not updating the site frequently enough. By early March, she announced she was suffering from terminal brain cancer and had only six months to live--a curiously similar diagnosis to Stewart's brother Ian's illness. Many members of the board were fooled, including Stewart who responded sympathetically to her post, asking her not to leave the site as she had threatened to.(sockii)
An anonymous poster called her out on the dubious nature of her disease and questioned if it was a case of Munchausen by Internet, which quickly led to public threats against the board by other anonymous posters--around the same time as the board suffered a hacking attack, during which many of the posts involving katieh5584 were lost. katieh5584 herself created a second identity, cavegirl, rushing to katieh5584's defense and more anonymous threats appeared.[11][12][13] katieh5584 was eventually caught by sockii deleting and reposting a comment made under the wrong identity,[14] thereby revealing her multiple sock puppet accounts. More abuse was directed by katieh5584 at various board members[15] and she began posting at www.stewartcopeland.co.uk as well, looking for support, until the site moderators deleted her accounts and shut down her abusive behavior. As of December 2007, she has not reappeared on the site or on any other Police board under this identity.
[edit] Roxanne75
Roxanne75 has used various different names (including simply Love) and caused confusion and disruption on numerous Police-related messageboards including www.stewartcopeland.net, StingUs, and Sting.com. On January 17, 2007, she posted a rambling message on the StingUs messageboard accusing Sting.com administrators Dave and Wendy (and Sting and Dominic Miller himself) of treating her badly and laughing at her.[16] In April she appeared on www.stewartcopeland.net posting as Roxanne75 stating she was seeking a husband after a failed marraige proposal which somehow had something to do with Sting. "You should be aged between 37-40, wanting to have children, be well educated, non-smoking and non-drinking, not discriminating towards others and open minded. You should have a keen interest in music, especially into Sting's music. I still only believe into the starsigns libra, scorpio and capricorn. Maybe you live in the UK or France would also be fine."[17] Her strangely-worded requests were not particularly welcomed and her behavior on the board became increasingly erratic before she was banned and her threads deleted by the moderators. If nothing else, the disruption provided ammunition for a series of new catch-phrases and icons for fandom_wank.[18]
[edit] Stewart vs. The Media
- On May 31, 2007, Stewart Copeland posted a blog to his messageboard entitled "OUR FIRST DISASTER GIG!"[19] This tongue-in-cheek report jokingly reported on problems they'd had encountered during early tour performance in Vancouver on May 28, 2007. The story was well received by fans on the website, but picked up by Reuters on June 1, much to the concern of many fans as the story spread wildly and was misquoted through the press.[20] Fans feared (correctly) that this "mistake" on Stewart's part would mean he would not post publicly on the board with the frequency that he used to. Throughout the rest of 2007, hardly a concert review or other article on the band was published that did not refer to Stewart and the "Disaster Gig" blog, which by December of 2007 had received over 125,000 hits on the board.
