You can’t justify it as spam, though. If a topic is popular, then it will be talked about. Nobody is deliberately telling people to post Mercy threads, it is literally just a popular topic. Are you going to flag speculative threads of the next hero when that gets popular? No.
“This post is an advertisement, or vandalism. It is not useful or relevant to the current topic.”. This is the criteria that must be met for something to be considered spam, Mercy threads do not fit that, despite what people want to think.
But what do I know? There’s a Mercy hivemind that is commanding forces to spam thread after thread to block up the forums, right? This is how people think now?
i had to leave urgently a match, my father called me for something really important and i couldnt have guessed at all he was going to call me while i was playing comp.
turns out i leave, and when i return, im greeted with literally the angriest mercy main in the universe , yelling, and telling every single person in the match to report me, and kept insulting me , going as far to even say “theres not a single more important thing than playing overwatch while you play ranked, enemy team, please report sodartic”.
never assuming them as nice people.
never falling for the act.
never.
again.
*Straps on a flame-proof vest and holds up a riot sheild *
Most of my friends list are Mercy mains and they are all nice. Everyone can chose what they wish to believe but I’ve always believed to not judge others by the heroes they chose and pick and choose who to accept and avoid as individuals.
1.- They should have at least 3 forums Support, Tank and Damage
2.- They should start give warnings to Mercy Spammers, 24 hours ban, 48 hours ban and 72 hours ban.
3.- They should make a posture. We will not revert mercy, We will not tollerate more Spamage in our forums and we wil not tollerate the toxicity of mercy mains
Doing this blizzard will put order in the forums in like 1 week
Example
Revert Mercy for “X reason” = BAN 24 hours, 48, 72 and perma if you insist Etc
Because no hero, no matter how OP they are, should EVER be nerfed 5+ times in a row. PERIOD. If one hero is that dominant, then maybe the problem is that others are too weak.
Assuming the person who posted the thread you quoted is the OP here…If not, then in reply to whoever posted it…
This kind of attitude is why FPS games in general suck. Not everything has to be about MLG level skills. A huge part of why overwatch is enjoyable is that it isn’t all about tryhards or casuals. It’s supposed to be a nice mix of both. If you just want to tryhard all the time, cod & csgo exist. Maybe go try those instead of ruining an actually enjoyable game.
That gif is appropriate to many threads in the general section recently. Gone are the days of calm discussion and disagreements. Everything’s a shouting contest to see who can outlast the other.
And in no way i will negate that. But then, the same argument can be made about you. You are following the stereotype that whoever says “The majority of Mercy Mains are spammers” it’s just following a stereotype in his mind blindly.
So, now i have to ask you to give me your definition of stereotype because once again we find ourselves going in circles.
So, please, do so.
I won’t defend posting or opinions of people i don’t know. No one should do so unless the message and the circumstances are clear, which aren’t.
But the way that these threads “flood the main page” is that the main page is actually constantly flooded. Threads usually live about 3-10 minutes before they’re buried by new topics.
But that was exactly what was happening with those threads. I’m talking about things i’ve seen with my eyes. I’m not generalizing, i’m not talking of stuff that may or may not have happened. The situation was as such and, even if it still feels bad now, almost 2 months ago it was way, way worse.
And i think the majority of us realize this or the Mercy threads would get spam flagged massively, which they are not.
But more solid proof of this is give just by giving a quick look to the front page.
While the word “Mercy” comes up a lot, it’s not that oppressing. Especially not as before.
To be honest i really don’t know how to address this. But not because i can’t come up with an argument, but because i’ve already explained you how the “group”, atleast in my mind, is being made. It doesn’t account for the totality and it’s not fixed. Is subjected to constant shifts as people move into the group and while in it they fluctuate between the 2 categories that i’ve made.
As an example of how the whole process, for me, works is the following:
User X declares himself as Mercy Main. This gets double checked by the actual consistency of his posts, as in trolling/actually engaging in a profitable post(I’ve low standards for profitable regarding this forum). If he appears to be a Mercy Main, as he declared, he shifts into the group of “Mercy Mains”. Once into the group it can either fall into “Mercy Spammers” or “Mercy serious poster”. It’s up to him, completely. Standards for this are: Threads being made about the same subject in a relatively brief span of time. It doesn’t take in account the number of posts in Mercy-related discussions, nor how many posts is he doing in his thread.
Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that he does two threads in one day about the same topic. Be it because his original thread died, be it because he felt that he needed more space. That’s spamming. On the majority of forums the thread would get deleted and the user would get a warning.
This, makes him fall into the “Mercy spammers” group. It’s a borderline case, i do not believe this happens most of the time, but i need to make a quick example here, work with me and avoid useless nitpicking.
Now, he is in the category of “Mercy Spammers” and contributes to the growth of that slice of the group population.
User Y follows the same pattern but does not spam. He places himself in the category of “Mercy serious posters”. Just as X made the “MS” group grow, this one makes the “MSP” group grow.
User X hasn’t been making spam threads anymore. He still makes threads about Mercy once in a while, still regularly posts in Mercy discussions.
He shifts to the category of “MSP”.
Same can happen to user Y.
The group and its balance are in a constant mutation.
The most common case, anyway, is the following:
User X makes a thread about Mercy.
User Y makes a thread about Mercy with the one still being active and present in the front page.
User Z does the same.
User “usingthelastletterswasawrongidea” makes a thread too.
We have now 4 ongoing threads that talk about the same topic being made and being present on the front page.
This is a situation that, even tho it’s the most common, it’s not easy to judge for various circumstantials reasons(Delay between threads being made, Right to be able to make threads about what you want, seriousness of the thread, differences between OPs point of views, etc etc).
And basically, i put them all on probation.
They keep spamming? Alright, you earned yourself the “MS” title.
They do not? Then your house is “MSP”.
Indeed i am. But i’m not randomly guessing, so please, don’t par me with him. I’ve set standards for such which include their statements and the most reliable countercheck i have on my disposal. Their history.
The fact that it could be not 100% accurate, it doesn’t mean it’s as unreliable as you make it appear. Nor on the same level of his random guessing.
This was a little break. Now, back to the fun part.
I’m talking about the Mercy spam because the thread is about the Mercy spam.
As i said, if it was made by genjis, tracers, winstons, hammonds, dvas, LGTBs, litterally everything you can spam about, i would have addressed those.
And if you look at my history, and even at the replies i wrote in this topic, when the situation was getting out of control due to the LGTB threads spam, i did the same and acted the same with them. And if you look at their megathreads, while i gave them harsh comments on the threads where they were spamming, i instantly commended them for making the megathread, in their megathread and left them alone ever since.
Actually, i got even suspended because someone made a megathread to mock them while they were doing something really good for all of us, and i told the OP of said thread that he enjoyed putting sphere shaped objects in his mouth(Suspension was fair, not complaining, not bringing this up to create arguments or controversy, just tryin to make a point about fairness).
So, once again, i’m not out for someone in particular, i just don’t like seeing a board littered with the same argument over and over.
So, no it’s not limited to “Mercy” spam. It’s the same for everyone and everything, as just said.
Fair’s fair.
Now, to just conclude:
Still, what happens is “There is a general spam of Mercy threads going on”(And this is realized by the population who’s doing this not for trolling, but for good reasons but in a naive way).
Clearly, this can indeed lead to a stereotype.
But it happens, atleast talking about what i do, that i tend to keep tabs on this stuff, and i’ve been seeing this behaviour presenting itself, over and over, with the same pool of users contributing to either: Making the threads, Keeping the discussion engaged.
It’s their right, and i’m not about forcing them to stop, but once again, i’m not even gonna pretend it’s not happening or that it’s not spam or atleast lack of basic common sense.
Two threads each day, 3 tops, are enough to discuss the same topic, given the possibility of different premises set by the OP of each individual thread.
So, yeah, maybe in some way, from some users, they are being stereotyped, but the stereotype wouldn’t be there if they were to actually put some effort in organizing themselves or just use a little common sense.
And if someone is gonna argue that’s not our right to force you to stop, i agree. It’s not our right, nor it’s our place.
But you can’t then ask to not get stereotyped into this nor make threads about how the community is abusing you, because it’s not your right, nor it’s your place. For others it feels like you are abusing us with said spam(I’m using the term abuse to just keep the terminology used in the thread i am referencing to. I do not believe there is abuse on either side, just annoyance).
As you can see, it goes both ways.
Help yourself and sure this all will go away, just as it went away for the LGTB community.
P.S. Video’s lame. And while you can think that we can agree to disagree, which is fine, i’m more inclined to thinkin that maybe we changed a bit each other mind about the argument, which doesn’t mean we agree completely, but that we found common ground, because that’s how what you said in your last reply struck me and that’s how i hope this reply will struck you too. And that is probably the best outcome.
This is too damn funny, mercy mains defending there precious jewel. And i used to be like you defending her but lets be honest, she needs no skill, doesnt need a buff, and the games better without her in alot of matches, ive had more fun when she isnt picked and so have others, its just better
“A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”
A stereotype is a perceived group as opposed to an actual group. We often box people together to better understand and simplify expressions, such as “women are caring” or “men are violent.”
These stereotypes do not necessarily fit everyone in the box, but still often attack people by attempting to put them in a box. Therefore you often get very strong responses on topics such as “Mercy mains” because people don’t like the label and the accusations that are being attached to them.
As you can probably hear, it’s actually a very widespread issue that spans into many different areas of life. Stereotypes are found in common conversations and happen all the time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
But if you want to avoid threads like these always getting so much buzz and attention, you simply have to stop lobbying people together in your terminology (you don’t do it Musica, but the original poster and many other thread posters do—edit: such as the poster above).
For example, would the topic have grown to +300 replies if it was formulated as such?
The point’s the same, but you’re no longer boxing Mercy players together in the topic title and then vividly insinuating negative things about them.
Since someone tried to get technical with you on this, technically it’s “duplicate threads” (although I would define that as spamming too).
I wanna elaborate a bit on this, because I believe the issue spans outside just the “Mercy threads.” I actually often see people replying to popular threads by making new topics because their reply doesn’t get the amount of attention they want once the thread has crossed a certain number of replies.
Which is why when you have a big popular thread, you can sometimes see several other threads get created on the same topic—which are sometimes just posters that made a thread instead of replying to the original so their opinion can become the center of discussion.
I think one of the issues in your argumentation might be that people don’t share your definitions. For instance, I think your definition of a “Mercy spammer” is very different from what most people think. You did legitimize your definitions, but I think you overestimate what people think about those terms.
I’ve seen a lot of really negative posts that simply describe Mercy as “brainless hero that requires no skill” and you can guess what they then think of any poster or player associated with her.
Maybe for you Musica, but a lot of the stereotypes I see on the forum is because people struggle to formulate good arguments and so they often use plural expressions to make their opinion sound more important. Because if it’s an issue to lots of people and not just a vocal minority, their argument has more of an impact.
I mean, it’s not exactly a surprise a public gaming forum isn’t full of good argumentative posters. There’s a lot of forum tropes and sometimes I can just go into a thread and just count them, “Here’s the troll baiting with a clickbait title. Here comes the white knight that’ll defend Blizzard no matter what. Oh, here’s the nitpicker that splits everything into quotes and ignores the context.”
It’s ironic because of you said earlier about how I was trying to “win” the argument, and I posted this advice a while back to an equally frustrated poster:
For example, when I said I’d stop replying to Undertone I really should just have stopped right there. But it’s difficult to adhere in the sea of repetitive arguments and I do completely agree with more structure and better moderation would go a long way to fixing that.
It definitely does and you’re completely right. But I always find the science behind human psychology interesting. It dictates how a lot of debates operate and it helps you detach from an argument so you don’t get emotionally involved when you realize that people aren’t actually attacking you, but the idea they have of you.
For example, it’s a very typical concept that the purpose of an argument is to change someone’s mind—the idea that the natural conclusion of a debate should be that someone has changed their viewpoint completely. And that idea is partly why a lot of debates get stuck in back-and-forth replies because every reply usually expects to completely defeat the point when in fact the most successful method of convincing someone is to agree with them and then offer perspective.
someone who likes to play Mercy 
