A talk about the Dota 2 Workshop and its relationship with the Dota 2 community

This isn't going to be a complaint about the Dota 2 subreddit, even if I do mention it a lot. I'm posting this to give an insight into a part of my short three year Workshop life, and maybe give Workshop artists who still feel vulnerable toward these kinds of reactions some perspective or advice that could help them deal with it better than I did.



Warning: It's going to be long, and there's no tl;dr.



If you wonder what a Dota 2 Workshop artist's relationship with the community looks like outside of The International, this is a fair representation, if a bit overblown by New Bloom:



https://www.reddit.com/r/Dota2/comments/5ltm4z/amazing_troll_warlord_submission_in_the_workshop/



For some Workshop artists, none of this matters. For some, it matters a lot.



First I'd like to say that this stuff doesn't bother me anymore. Emphasis on "anymore" as this kind of stuff used to devastate me, and I even had to take a month long hiatus from the Workshop after reading much worse posts on Reddit and NeoGAF about a set I'd made and my personal contributions to Dota 2. Yes, the Silencer one.



A lot of us became Workshop artists for love of the game, for love of the art, or for wanting to connect with the community as a content creator. That's why for some of us, large amounts of community backlash can be painful to deal with, even though it's rarely personal.



Regardless of whether or not you agree with people's opinions or the way they express them on Reddit, this kind of communication is necessary to the process.

People need to be able to express their opinions and judgements about the content we create. We also need to see them, because sometimes there's vital information there as to how to improve the content, or how to improve as artists.

Could it be better for both parties? Yes, it most definitely could. Unfortunately, Reddit is the only real way for Workshop artists to openly connect with the Dota 2 Community. As a result, most of us don't bother anymore.



A difficult part of a Workshop artist's relationship with the community is that this example is how it usually plays out in public.

Workshop artists have to deal with what is largely just a constant barrage of negativity, and dig for a few positive comments here and there. There are no shoutout threads for Workshop artists or the Workshop as a whole. Our work is largely an anonymous effort, our duties, and influence over Dota 2, often misunderstood despite our best efforts to explain it in the past. A lot of our positive reactions have to be read in numbers, like the percentage of positive upvotes compared to negative replies.



Here are some conclusions that I've come to after three years in the Workshop in regards to that:



-Reddit is an extremely vocal minority in the scope of the Dota 2 player community.

They shout loudly, sometimes with good reason, but their opinions don't always represent the majority of the Dota 2 community. Sales data alone is good evidence of this.



-If you're going to start or participate in a Workshop thread on Reddit, it should be to communicate with the community, not promote or provide exposure to a set.

Only about 10% of people voting on Reddit threads actually go and vote for the set in the Workshop. The amount of voter traffic I saw on the Troll Warlord set in one day from having a number 1 Reddit thread dedicated to it (while it did not provide a link) was 119 people total. That's including people who just got to it without Reddit.

You're not going to see huge numbers of positive or negative votes on your set based on positive or negative Reddit threads. At most, they give you a few hundred votes in either direction. The only "outside" factor that really matters in Workshop votes anymore is the top 3 Steam library spots. Whether or not votes matter at all anymore is a separate topic.



-Reddit is a big community. A thread full of comments does not necessarily represent the diverse group of people that make up that community.

You won't often come to any useful conclusions about how the Dota 2 community feels about a set in the Workshop by looking at positive or negative replies. A lot of the time, you could have seen it posted on another day with the opposite result, or it could have died before ever hitting the rising page. A lot of people say that Reddit doesn't know what it wants, but Reddit isn't one mind, it's thousands of people, and what's expressed there is often just a result of which people decided to post that day.



-Regardless of how nonconstructive the criticism, how hatefully presented, you can often glean something of use from it.

This is probably the thing that took me the longest to come to terms with. I come from a background of art and writing, and even though I'm used to constructive criticism, I'm not particularly good or graceful at receiving it. I usually have to step back for a bit and digest the information for a while to get past the surface to the deeper issues it's attempting to expose.

Applying this approach to the kind of comments you get on Reddit isn't easy. Most of the time what you get to work with isn't presented in a way that's meant to expose the issues or construct solutions. Some of it is also just meant to make you feel bad.

Regardless, if you're able to look at a Reddit thread as a whole, whether positive or negative, and get some useful information out of it, it will help you in the long run.



-Don't measure your successes on the back of what is expressed on Reddit, and don't look for approval in the Dota 2 community.

I'm not saying it's desolation out here, I really appreciate the small fanbase I have. I got lucky. Being a Workshop artist is, for most artists, a thankless job. Unless you were a Workshop artist five years ago, chances are no one will care to get to know you or your name now, and you should be fine with that. Be a Workshop artist for love of the game, for love of the art, for the money to support yourself.



I want to end this by saying something positive about the Workshop.



The community of Workshop artists, despite being extremely competitive by nature, can also be incredibly supportive. I started out in the Dota 2 Workshop with no workable knowledge of how to do 3D art, and many artists, industry professionals and hobbyists alike, have helped me through the process of learning and improving over the past three years. It's not all positivity and camaraderie, but it is by far the best learning environment I've ever had.



So carrying on in that tradition, if you have any questions about the Workshop, if you're an artist who needs help with the process, like I was, or if you're suffering from that Reddit induced anxiety, you can always talk to me.

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