Hello i've just joined and this is my first post. Anyway I recently watched on youtube a video where Steven Moffat goes crazy at fans for posting spoiler on the internet about The Impossible Astronaut. I have to say a part of me agrees with him and a part of me doesn't. I agree with him because it can be frustrating writing a plot and it getting leaked on the internet. However I kinda feel like it's his fault aswell. If he wanted no one to see it why have a press launch and invite fans what did he expect! He also came across as arrogant and up him self. I also didn't like the way he said Doctor Who is my show that's rubbish he's only the headwriter Doctor Who is the BBC's show.In all my time i've never seen anyone launch an attack on fans like that before. I still like his story's but that interview has kinda made me dislike him a bit. One more thing nearly everyone already knew what was going too happen in the last Harry Potter film and we where still excited about it. Spoilers aren't really that big of a deal.

As the showrunner and head writer he is quite entitled to vent his spleen against the disrespectful idiots who seek to spoil other peoples enjoyment of the program by revealing entire plot synopsis before broadcast all for a bit of meaningless and short lived internet fame. Such people are nasty little leeches seeking to wallow in some reflected glory from his hard work. They deserve far harsher words and condemnation than Moffat dished out.

Also, it wasn't an attack on fandom as a whole....only a very small sub section of fandom who when all is said and done aren't really proper fans at all. So don't misrepresent his comments.

Surely that is just being silly, the effort it takes to find spoilers proves that you at-least care enough to want to spoiled e.g. your a fan, i go out of my way to find spoilers. does it lesson my enjoyment no it doesn't sometimes it even compliments it.

Spoiler in text terms 4eva!

I meant that the people purposefully breaking trust on revealing plot points and spoiling other peoples enjoyment aren't most probably proper fans. Let's not forget the person who posted the entire plot of TIA on here unspoilered. It's just bad form really.

And I like the occasional spoiler also. Moffat wasn't attacking people that do.

He had every right to be upset someone posted an entire story outline after being given the chance to see a screening, only being asked not to spill the beans in return, especially given the way it was posted on here in such a way as to deliberately spoil people who didn't want to know.

Obviously the Op wasn't around at the time, but a lot of people here were very upset at the time because this outline was posted in several threads, with no spoiler tags, oftentimes with misleading thread titles. It was a deliberate and calculated acted of sabotage by the person responsible,who even registered with another id to keep posting it after being banned by DS.

The thing I really dislike in all this is the way this individual is not held to account for their own selfish actions, as people like the OP use the " shouldn't invite fans to screenings" defence when fans have had the chance to go to many screenings down the years without posting the whole story outline after.

I despise the whole notion of 'fandom'.

I need to add hastily that I dont despise the idea of fans as individuals.

But the idea of 'fandom' came about a lot later than the idea of 'fans'. I have no idea when, but it is typical of the ludicrous self importance which nowadays attaches to consumers rather than producers. The person who serves up the lunches to the cast of Doctor Who and has no interest whatsover in the programme is more important than the whole of fandom put together. And as for the scriptwriters like RTD and SM, well there simply wouldn't be anything for 'fandom' to criticise or praise without them- somebody's got to sit in a room somewhere and dream this stuff up.

And that is my Marxist analysis of SM's perfectly legitimate attack on those who are making his job more difficult despite his efforts to indulge them with advanced screenings etc.