Spamming

Spamming takes on many forms in Team Fortress 2, such as chat, voice communication, and voice command spamming. Some players find certain kinds of spam funny, while many find it annoying. It is usually employed as a style of trolling, or participating in an internet meme.

Chat spam

Chat spam involves one or more players continually using the in-game text based chat system to send nonsensical or repetitive messages, continually request trades or free items, or to abuse other players. Chat spammers usually copy and paste a message repeatedly within the chat window or bind a key to the say command in the Developers Console along with a message, allowing the message to be sent repeatedly with the press of a key. Eg: Bind l say Buying Name Tags

Voice Communication spam

See also: Voice chat

Voice Communication spam, also known as "mic spam" happens when a player uses the in-game VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system to repeatedly send messages to other players. Unlike chat spamming, players can get a lot more creative by using a number of sound effects, voice clips, or music from an external program. While some players find it amusing, many players consider this irritating as this may disrupt their concentration or affect their ability to listen for key in-game sounds, such as incoming players or uncloaking Spies. In addition, micspamming can make it very difficult to listen to a teammate's alerts or responses. Another program, HLDJ, was used before the Hatless Update and introduced the Silk codec. Players could use its binds to play sound clips and music.

Voice Command spam

“

Need a dispenser here! Need a dispenser here! Need a dispenser here!... Click to listen — The Scout, spamming his fellow teammates.

”

Voice command spam involves a player abusing voice commands (pre-defined calls used to communicate with other players) by using them repeatedly and often without legitimate reason. Although some players may find this entertaining, depending on the lines used, it usually affects affects their ability to read the in-game text chat, if said command uses the chat window, causing players chat windows to be flooded with the voice command(s). This also results in the disruption of proper voice command usage. Voice command spamming may occurs in servers that have the tf_max_voice_speak_delay disabled.