It's happened before, you may or may not have seen/been a part of it. Drama between the scanlation groups over a series (or even multiple ones). Whenever over whatever reason, it happens.
But what I want to know is: What do you think about it as a whole?
I can't trust comments or whatever left on the sites of those in the dispute, as clearly "fans" will choose sides and stick with it.

Let's present a few situations for some imput on:
1) Speed vs. Speed
2) Speed vs. Quality (Yes, I know quality is subjective. Just take it into your own view of quality)
3) Quality vs. Quality

I'm being very general here just to make it easier, rather than picking on groups and suches. Now for my opinion. I'm part of a group that focuses on quality, and the group currently has some drama against a speed group (hence my curiosity which created this topic). Also, please excuse my language. I like to be more casual when I speak about my opinion.
Note: I believe that I have not read more series than the majority of you readers, but I do have a fair share of of in my belt (my list is incomplete, I'm too lazy to do it here on MU and would rather keep it in my head ^_^).

1) I don't particularly care about this anymore since not only are there a shitload of speed groups that do the same series over and over, they suck. As I grew to appreciate scanlations and the work that goes into them more, I grew to be disgusted with the terrible job speed groups do. I do not count groups like Maximum7 and Japflap as speedgroups, even though they do series like Bleach and Naruto, respectively (which are f**king overridden with speed groups). I stopped reading speedscans altogether.

2) Here is where I change my own vocabulary usage. Speed groups are now replaced with the phrase s**t scans (or s**tscans, depending on my personal usage). This is my view and I'm not changing it.
Usually I see it where a s**tscan group picks up a series from a quality, although I have seen instances where a quality group picks up a s**tscanned series to improve on it. Now the usual reason a s**tscan group picks up a series already in the middle of scanlation is because the quality group does it too slowly. There are times where they use that as a cover and pick up the series because the anime came out and want to "grab" fans or something.
I personally see this move as wasted f**king effort. Plenty of f**king series out there that have not been touched by anyone from anywhere, and you want to work on something that's already being done by a superior group (yes, I see quality groups as superior to s**tscan groups no matter how long it takes them in comparison to s**t scans). This is assuming that the quaility group is active and releasing. I wouldn't take such a heavy viewpoint against a dropped series or a series that hasn't had a release for like 8 months and higher.
While yes, this is the internet we can "do whatever the f**k we want", I personally don't take kindly to this kind of retardedness. If it was really being done "for the fans" then perhaps you want to open their eyes to something they have surely never seen?

3) Ah, this is where I get torn. All groups have their faults, no doubt about that. Therefore, it makes it even harder when I consider two groups who are "quality" that fight over the same series. I have not seen many of these kinds of disputes, mainly because the quality groups tend to pick up things that aren't already being done (there are always exceptions). I have not read as wide a range of manga as many other readers, so I am unable to provide much about this kind of situation. If both groups are of equal quality in my opinion, I would read from both groups to get the benefits of them both. If one group is slower than the other, I might fall back on the "who had it first" kinda thing (probably due to loyalites). If one group is too slow (ie. past my limit of 8 months of no release) then I will switch. If one group has higher quality than the other, I will choose the one with higher quality.
I can't even trust myself on this one, it really depends on the series and the groups.

These were not my original opinions when I first started out. I had absolutely NO f**king concept of the terms s**tty quality (low quality), medium quality, and high quality. As I grew, so did my views. I can not say that me being in a "quality" group has not had an effect on my views. However, I am glad I did not place myself in a s**tty group. Yeah sure, they spend their time and some effort into the scanlations, but I'm not taking that.


tl;dr: I hate s***ty groups (ie. s**tscans).

Anyone willing to tackle this on? I'd love to hear how other people see this, and what they feel is "right" and "wrong" in a world of "wrongs" and trying to be "right".

Edit by mod: Please watch your language...

Last edited by NightSwan at 9:27 am, Jan 12 2009

1. Personally speed means nothing to me. I like scans quickly of course but I'm not impatient and most of what I really wait for isn't done by speed groups. I can't see the point in 10 groups all trying to release the next chapter of naruto or Bleach the fastest.

2. Quality. I can't do the jobs of scan group though so I respect any one who can. My favourite manga mostly only have one group releasing them at any one time so I have so much appreciationg for them and don't really have a issue of quality or speed. If they require a couple of weeks to make their release good quality without sacrificing their own lives that's fine by me. I can't do the job so I have no right to complain afterall. I like to be able to understand my manga and not have to wrestle with LQ scans and poo rproof reading which means I spend half the manga trying to make the literal translations actually make grammatical sense. Maybe it's because I'm English but for some reason grammer is important to me.

3. I never download from scan groups since I read most of my manga on onemanga.com and buy my favourites when they come out in England. If I did I would go for the higher quality scan. If both are the same than whoever had it first or if one group becomes practically inactive then whoever still releases.

I pretty much agree with most of what MrEngenious said.

________________
The pen is mightier than the sword...and considerably easier to write with.

1. I don't care who gets it to me at all for speed scans.
2. Quality over speed always. I hate when shitscan groups just take projects out of nowhere. I mean i can understand sometimes when they do it, when the releases are very slow. But sometimes they have this habit to post their shitty scan right after a quality scan has been released. And shitscan groups have no longevity. They tend to die out quickly, I'd rather have the more stable secure group releasing stuff as well.
3. I agree with mrEngenious on this one. Personally I just think multiple quality scans of the same thing is a waste of time, they should all just do a joint.

I hate shitscans.

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I really should get an avatar

Interesting topic, let's turn on our thinking caps here (great topic BTW)

First, I'll talk about the type I usually like to read.

First off, there's speed and quality. I want at least decently scanned with clean pages that doesn't really look too much it was photocopied directly off from the monthly magazine (it's fine, but it's HOW you make up for lost quality). If a group can consistently have decent to HQ scanlations, I'm following. This means that even if there was a speed group out there, they'll be behind a few days but at a higher standpoint and I'll still follow that first group.

Second, by building a trust between the fans and the reader, you'll get a loyalist like me, that will follow certain groups which can be still be flexible to some being released earlier, even if two well-known groups are at it.



1) Speed is nothing if you sacrifice a ton of quality to go with it. One, I find that a lot of mainstream manga I was currently reading (some were speedsubs) sacrificed a lot of visual quality and grammar to bring it out faster than the other guy. It was disheartening to know that a series with so much more was sacrificed because of time constraints by peers or the fans. Honestly, you can go as fast as you like, but make sure it looks like it's been actually been proofed over before you release it. I may not understand the original raws, but I at the very least know when there seems to be a mistake between dialogue and what's shown. Don't sacrifice EVERYTHING for quality. Remember, QUALITY > QUANTITY. Always. If you need to take a step back, please do, cause I know even if it's a few days to a week behind, I'll be expecting something better, and it always is. So for me speed is nothing without quality in there.




2) Probably one of THE biggest issues and most common of what I see between scanlation groups. There's a title that (for example purposes) Group A has been doing, but has been say.... inactive for that title for over a month or more and fans are kinda growing restless on when's the next chapter. Group B wants to take matters into their own hands and decide to release the same chapter with differing quality issues (whether it's on par, lower, or higher than the Group A doing it). Now starts the disputes on, "Hey! WE did this first, now back off!" type of attack and worrying and the flame wars continue.

You know who's usually at fault between the two of them? It's both. Why? An argument leads to more flaming and the two sides will now get 'unruly' (I'll try to be civilized here). Usually there is:
- a lack of communication
- lack of civility and at times
- a lack of responsibility on both parties.

All honesty, both should know better. Now who's to blame more, is a different story, but what I'm trying to say is, that if you want to pick up that seems dead, that's truly a noble deed in terms of scanlation since there are fans putting this series on hold BECAUSE they're waiting for that next chapter. What is lacking from what I find is the sense of an update of this series no matter what it is.

Follow it up, tell the fans it might be dead, or that your still having problems dealing with the chapter/series, or give it up to another scanlation where they can try to pick up on where you left off. Or even better yet, COMBINE those two groups together and make certain staff work on certain projects with other staff members. Do a joint project! It's not bad, and usually combines the best of two groups together. It doesn't HAVE to be all titles, just on the ones you were competing on right?

I understand everyone else has a life to live, but sometimes there are others who have more time to work on a series than others. Why not try to combine those who have the time to work on a 'hot' or 'top priority list' title so that they can release that title faster to the public.




3) I've never seen a lot of problem with this, but quality vs. quality isn't really that much of an issue to me. Maybe some phrases didn't sound right even if it was done by two different well-known groups. That's totally fine, and it's usually totally minor. In all honesty though, it's pretty consistent both visually and grammatically.




All in all, I can be pretty patient on how fast a series will go, end or how they go about it. What's usually the problem between the two groups is a LACK of communication between the two parties. Majority of you are adults (or almost one) and should deal with it as such in a responsible manner. There's no need to flame or go start HATING when it never makes you more than like some dumb brat. Communication is KEY here. I don't know why we have the internet and this still happens. If a mistake is been done, apologize, fix it and try to fix that wrong rather than arguing about it. Because arguing simply does nothing, while fans are there trying to decide, "Hey when's the next chapter coming" or "This is becoming a waste of time". All honesty, if it's for the fans, shouldn't you think of the fans first before you start a feud? What's it going to benefit for? Nothing. So work it out, cause I know we can all do it


TL;DR - Lack of communication can kill....

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TRULY EPIC

1) speed is important for me.. i practically very dependent on speedscans, this is because not every1 have the luxury to open internet all the time and as for me i can only use internet once a week so speed means everything to me EXCEPT when the quality is been severely compromise till it actually bother my reading experience...

2) i dont see this as the problem.. lets take it as a other point, people scans manga/comic because they see it as their passion and that we must respect. i dun see calling speedscans as shitscans are helping the situation?? (of course this is your option, i dun mind but at least show some respect). as for me the speeedscans merely trying to cater at diffrent level of readers, as i said in point 1... if another higher quality scans showed up just download it and as most on9 manga readers subscribe broadband i dun see much problem there and i dun take lazy as excuses, if u are lazy why bother read manga then?? .. no need to raise a fuss bout it. but i agree much when too much groups scanlating a series, sometimes its got overwhelming.. i mean theres a bunch more manga out there deserve attention (but as i said its about passion ) hey can any1 know which group willing to scanlate natsu no arashi?? its taking too long for townsock imo

3) quality is subjective... i agree every word of it... when it comes to quality i dun really care much, i mean every1 its doing their best but people make mistakes haha.. as long as i see its beautiful and readable i'll keep it (some of the speedscans have talent in cleaning) yeah this is the part which its all in our head... and 1 more thing i agree wif nightfox that even if the phareses are diffrent between groups as long as it means the same, not some cheezy translation i'm fine by it.

forgive me for my grammars mistake and if cause some offence to others...

as long as the qualitiy isnt to bad i read it.
I dont care about the group. I just want my drug as fast as I can.
I like those "shitgroups" they're faster then you. And that's great.
gg

IMO.

1) Speed vs. Speed. I technically don't stick to speed groups unless they have good quality, because some speed groups tend to have shitty scanlation which I really dislike. But if they were speed groups that have good quality scanlation, I'll stick to the one that originally scanlated it, instead of the group that just comes in without any notice to the scanlator who first scanlated it.

2) Speed vs. Quality. Quality group wins. Sometimes quality groups might be a little behind and you can't really blame it. Those leechers really don't know about anything and all those work that goes into bring good quality scanlation. If quality group was scanlating a series first and then a shitgroup comes, I'll stick with the quality group. I hate it when a speed group just comes and picks it up because the quality group ain't "fast" enough. And then what gets produce is a load of shit scans, and raws from the public. Quality groups tend to buy their raws themselves with their money, so I also support them much more, because that shows how much they care about bringing manga to the fans instead of leeching some public shitty raws to scanlate "speedshitscans." And I understand how impatient one gets when the chapter is a cliffhanger, and then they start rambling off and complaining to the scanlator, I've been that way before[the impatient part] but instead of complaining, I started learning Japanese, and look what got to me now? I can read the raws. Seriously, to all fans who gets impatient, please try to learn some foreign language(chinese, japanese, korean), it helps. One, you don't have to get impatient anymore. Two, you can help out the quality group by translating.

3) Quality vs. Quality. I stick to the first quality group that scanlated first. =)

*Note: No offense to shitgroup fans. this is my opinion.

1. Speed vs. Speed: Whatever has the best quality. I don't download manga very often to read, so I can afford to wait a bit longer for something better. If there's a speedscan group I know isn't that bad (decent cleaning, good proofreading or a translator that speaks English well), I'll download their scans. If there's a single, new cleaner who just works on their own and isn't that great, I'll probably avoid that.

2. Speed vs. Quality: Quality always wins. Period. I understand why it might be frustrating to wait months for a single chapter, but geez, can't the faster scans at least release something decent? I agree with NightFox that the best option is for the groups to work together. Often, delays are caused by a lack of staff. If the staff are just lazy (and some of them are), then that's a big problem, but it can't be helped by just adding more staff. I admit I'd probably download something faster IF the quality was still decent, it wasn't a series I really liked/followed, and the original group was ridiculously slow and arrogant about their releases (not GGpX-arrogant - - but the kind that withholds scans because people ask... I've seen it with subs, and I bet there are manga groups like that. You know, the sort of arrogant that actually affects release time). Otherwise, I'd be happy to wait.

Besides, for the series I love most, I only download scanlations to archive. I read the raw and translation instead.

3. Quality vs. Quality: Whatever group I like more and that releases faster. If I've been following a group's scans for a while, I'll read those for the sake of continuity. Still don't get why they just can't work together, but... hey, sometimes they just don't want to. If they're both quality scans, then I don't mind getting what's faster.

when i know that the quality releases are kinda regular (eg japflaps naruto scanlations) i won't touch the speed releases at all. when there're two or more groups releasing quality stuff then i usually compare a few chaps and pick the group where i like the scans better (can be wording, typesetting, different handling of sfx, overall editing, page size). when there's a huge gap between releases and one group is a week or two faster i pick the first to release and in case it's the "wrong" group, i pick the other group's releases later for my hdd

if there's only one group scanlating a title, it's a matter of supply and demand. there's a manga i absolutely have to read? don't care, gimme some .txt translations with crappy double page scans, i'm happy enough that there's actually someone translating it. when i can live without a manga but think that it could be kinda ok, i wait for releases that meet my basic quality requirements (stuff that even i could do with my basic knowledge, like proper cleaning of "easy" speech bubbles, leveling, etc. well, stuff i'd do, would i pick up a manga and do the editing. too much laziness here )

in a battle of speed releases (no quality available) i choose the slightly better quality when the release dates are close, else the faster one as long as i can handle the quality

I understand my take on speed groups by calling them "shitscans" is harsh, but I will not change my mind. I seriously doubt that many of those participating on speed scanlations really care about what they read instead of how they read it (exceptions are always there). I want to understand the story, the characters, and the author's full intent. I, like everyone else of course, will have a feeling of wanting to read more, but that will just have to wait if I want to completely appreciate the author's work. Speed scans really destroy many of the things I grew to appreciate and I just couldn't bear to touch any more of them lest I lose interest in my favorite series.

I appreciate all those who gave hearty responses and allowed me to see what they find valuable in scanlations.

For the ones who choose to not give thought and effort into a serious topic, that's exactly the fanboy/girlism towards groups that I did not want you to pick. Your opinion is wanted, especially if it does not follow my own, but please don't be that way. The reason the Internet is uncaring is because you choose to not care. I don't want it to be that way, and neither should you.

On a simlar topic to this, I seriously question the reasoning for scanlations. Is it really "for the fans" or for yourself to get some e-fame? Even I can not get myself to completely choose one side. I enjoy editing now (after all of the trauma and QCs) but what got me to start editing was the fact that I hoped someone would appreciate my work and effort, instead of me acknowledging that fact that the people may not know my nick but they will remember the scans, series, and author. At first I was totally fine with it, but as of now I'm uncomfortable when I confront myself with it. Was I really that selfish? How many are continuing to think the way I used to? I find it troubling where many seem to be heading (referring to speed groups).

EDIT: About quality groups co-operating with speed groups. I doubt that it would happen, but I wouldn't throw it out of the picture. I see the two types as on polar opposites of the scanlating spectrum in terms of goals. What one wants and does may not be desired on the other side for whatever reasons. I do agree that a lack of communication simply hurts matters, especially if one group just up and decides to release something without even talking with the "official" scanlators (Yeah yeah, it's the Internet. It's not required but I see it as respectful).

Thank you to those who have responded and those who will continue to respond (if any).

First of all, mind your language. Even though it's a forum, it doesn't excuse you (or anyone) not to have some manners. You don't need to have cuss words and name calling to prove your point. As much as you say you don’t care, you don’t seem apathetic in your post. To be honest, your whole post was a rant. But, I agree with the majority of your post, but in the end it comes to what reader wants. If the reader wants “shit scanlation”, let them have it. No scanlating group have the right to demand people to read their work.

1) Speed vs. Speed
I’m neutral on this issue, most group use the same translation. As long as the scan is clean and I can read it. 95% of the time I delete what I’ve just read and the 5% is
kept on my desktop as reminder for me to get the official English translation.

2) Speed vs. Quality
Neutral. Whoever releases first gets my pick

3) Quality vs. Quality
The group that releases the smaller size gets my pick.

As a reader, I want a small file to download. I have internet that is capped and counts uploads and downloads. Once I’m over my cap, I get throttled down to dial up speed til the end the month.

MrEngenious- Why does it bother for you, that there’s a large a number of speed scanlator? Other than their workmanship may not be up to your standards. I'm asking this because you said that you are part of a quality group.

A question not directed at anyone, but I am keen to have a read on it. What is there to gain if you release a chapter before any other group?

________________
In the paper today, tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page
Now I'm walking again to the beat of a drum
And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart
- Crowded House 'Don't dream it's over'

Well first of all...I'm in a scanlation group, we just release whenever we get it done...it's up to the fans to judge it quality or not. Even if they're "shitscans" they're still scanlation groups spending time making releases for the fans, which I can respect.
1) Speed vs. Speed
In a situation like this, I usually choose one group and stick with them for the rest of the series.
2) Speed vs. Quality
Well...it really depends on the series for me. If it's a series I really like, I read the quality scans, I can't stand unleveled/badly edited scans.
For a series I just read to pass time...like most of the shoujo I read, it's speed.
3) Quality vs. Quality
Like for speed vs. speed, I choose one group and move on.

But yeah...I've been part of flame wars, it just gets me mad when they just pick up a series without even looking if there's someone else already working on it...because then it just wastes our time and effort. Meh, but we sorted it out and decided on a joint.

Also, just because people don't reply to your topic, that does not make someone a fanboy/fangirl, they may not have enough experience/knowledge about it to answer or they don't have the time, or they don't even see it exists. -_-;;

Another point, have you ever been in a speed scanlation group? If not, so how would you know that they don't care about what they're reading, and how would you know their translations aren't correct or closely correct? Just because they translate fast doesn't mean it's always inaccurate and completely off.

And to answer your question, yes, we do it for the fans. It started for the fans and will end for the fans...
I joined the scanlation group because I wanted to help out and had way too much time on my hands, if I really wanted e-fame, I could easily just post my username all throughout the scans.
And most people do not look at the credit pages anyways, so there's no point in getting e-fame.

Well, hope I answered your questions and keep in mind that it's just my opinion.

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♪MONSTARR~ will eat all your cookies and steal your bishies~♪ Φ_Φ

There were just so many long posts here... I skimmed them... generally it looked like people had the same thoughts.

I'll give you my perspective as someone who's been here for a really long time (the group had its 8th anniversary last week !_!):

Speed groups have a place in the world, but that doesn't mean that it's a well-respected place. They're like hyenas, cleaning up the dead meat from the Savannah. Whenever they move to some other meat, they piss off everyone and ruin the ecosystem, but as long as they stay doing their standard stuff, whatever, no one cares.

Whenever a speed group moves to a project that a quality group is doing, the quality group gets angry. Generally, 'quality' groups are actually just slow, laid back groups, while the speed groups are (obviously) geared towards efficiency, and the quality group usually gives up because no one's reading their releases anymore. Group loyalty among fans is at an all-time low (personally, I don't think it can get any lower), and anyone releasing the next chapter first will take the vast majority of the viewers, lowering the download count of the quality group substantially, and making them feel far less appreciated in the process (most people do this to be appreciated, they've all got very low self-esteem... eventually you get over it and do it for the sense of accomplishment, but that takes a few years). Unappreciated groups disband, the fans whine for about 48 hours, then the speed group releases another chapter and everyone's happy.

The exception would be very large quality groups that actually have the resources to 'fight' with speed groups. Those of us with lots of quality staff members have the option to move everyone on to the infringed project and release it amazingly quickly with the same quality. Generally speed groups work one chapter at a time, which puts them at a disadvantage when quality groups are working 10 chapters all at once (really, it doesn't take that much longer to do a page well as opposed to piss poor, so we'd release at least 7 or 8 chapters more than them over a given period of time). Speed groups who are bested in speed by those lazy bastard quality groups generally drop the project and move on to pick on lesser groups.

Quality versus quality comes down to speed and/or translation quality, since both groups are doing a good job on the visuals. Much the same as the above, the fans will choose the faster group, and the slower one will slowly lose downloads and eventually fall into a goth-like depression, probably closing the group down entirely.


I saw some mentions of 'everyone should just hold hands and work together singing kum ba ya and eating marshmallows'. Let's work through why this never happens. Step one to a working alliance is mutual respect. No quality group respects speed groups, so that joint project is dead in the water before it even sets sail. Step two is communication. If someone else starts a project that another group is already doing, I guarantee you that they didn't ask for a joint first, because they're jerks (why else would they be wasting their time working on something that's already being translated? You can say 'it's not going fast enough' all you like, but there are thousands of manga that aren't going at all... so you'd think those would have priority... unless they're jerks, of course). Once this project in question is done by another group, they're officially disrespectful asses that don't communicate... so... why would anyone want to do a joint with them knowing how terrible they are to work with? There are tons of groups that talk to the original group and work out a joint project to get things moving again... TONS of them, so there's no reason that anyone should give the other ones the benefit of the doubt.

There's also one other reason that I don't take joints from some groups... to put it bluntly, even 'quality' groups have low quality translations these days (everyone thinks that a few years in high school or college is enough to translate a manga, but the cold hard truth is that it isn't). And if I've got to retranslate their translations, then why should I give them joint credit? It's actually just me.

Speed scan groups have terrible translations, as a whole. There are some notable exceptions, but the general belief is correct, they're all bastardized beyond belief.


As for my personal (non-group owner) opinions on the subject, they match with the original poster pretty well. I choose entirely based on translation quality, and if something has bad translations but looks like it may actually be good (it's hard to tell sometimes), then I'll search Share for it or just buy it.

The first speed groups were disdained by the entire community (aside from the fans, of course, the fans don't give a lick how bad something is as long as they can kind of figure out what's happening). The popularity of that group spawned more and more and now we're overrun with them. Personally, I don't mind about bad quality scans and edits (to a point), but translations are my huge pet peeve, and they keep me from reading nearly every speed group (as well as a good portion of normal groups). I have a list of groups that I'll never work with or read from because of the poor translations of manga that I own and can actually check against the original. My mantra: If a bubble doesn't make sense, then the odds are really good that the entire translation is batshit crazy. Every translator has brain farts with sentence structure getting mixed around or typos or just 'man, what was I thinking there'... like both my translator and me as trans check translated Fuujin as Kamikaze the other day because we flipped the two kanji around in our heads, but those are simple mistakes that are expected and can be corrected. Characters that talk out of their ass or refer to text book translations for common words ('that time' used in flashbacks ("This is just like that time!" ) comes to mind as something that rarely sounds natural in translations, and it's a huge indicator that the translator is sitting their with a dictionary going through the words one by one, which is not usually going to get you the most accurate of translation.

What others have said basically goes for me, so here's a recap. (I'm not part of a scanlation group and have only been reading scanlations for 3 months, so I'm still finding some of the differences and which groups are speed vs. quality.)


The one thing that bothers me the most, be it in a speed or quality scan, is poor grammar, especially when it comes to sentence structure and missing or misplaced words. It really reduces the enjoyability of the manga if the sentence doesn't make grammatical sense in the language of translation. Because quality groups tend to take more time with this (as well as sFX, T/Ns, etc.), I read more from quality groups, when possible. [I would potentially add poor translation, but unfortunately, I don't know enough to know when the translation is poor, unless it is apparent by the grammar used.]


Also agreed. There are certain mangas where I just want to know what happens next, and then I'll reread once the 'quality' is released. However, for me, these cases are ALL manga which I started from the English publisher (e.g. S.A or Ouran), and I'm running ahead of what the English publisher has released - meaning I already intend to buy these upon English publisher release, but I want to know what's going on now. After having read Mr.Engenious's thoughts on that matter, I can completely understand the potential problem it presents. Perhaps he has been burned by that in the past, and I haven't yet, since I just started reading scanlations. I have no doubt that one's age (in reading scanlations, that is) may have something to do with one's opinion on the matter.

To get anything 'in advance' is appreciated, and whenever possible, I'll always go for quality over speed, especially if I have a favored group working on the project.

SnoopyCool's point about bad translations is also a concern, but for those of us who don't have the ability to compare to the original language, it is more difficult to determine whether or not the translation itself is bad or whether it is problems with understanding the grammar of the language to which it is being translated. (In other words, your grasp of Japanese might be native, and its the command of English that is poor, not that the Japanese is poor and the English is native.) Though I understand that in general if it is poor grammar, it is likely also poor translation, they are not one and the same necessarily. A good proof-reader should take care of this, but for smaller groups, that might not always be available.

Finally, a question:

One of the things that I seem to have understood from this conversations is that, for quality groups, "# of downloads = worth my time to work on it"? Is that an accurate assessment? If that is the case, then I will certainly make it a point to download scans from particular quality groups, even if I have already read a different speedscan of the same thing. Then again, I'm not reading too many of the really big players, like Naruto or Bleach, so I haven't run across too many where speed vs. quality is a problem for me. In many cases, it's just one group, so that's what I read.

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If you've ever thought or said "Nice Guys finish last" and really meant it, then you should probably read this LJ post by DivaLion. It's incredibly insightful whether you're male or female.

From a bumper sticker I like:
"If you're gonna ride my ass, at least pull my hair."

So much ranting... So many long posts...

Anyways, since the only series I read that has "speed scans"/a bunch of groups is gantz (although the D gray man as some too?~), I don't have that problem usually.
I tried reading black butler a couple of times, and was shocked by the amounts of low quality scans, and the fact that this series had about 7+ groups working on it...

I really can't understand why so many groups do that... To gain popularity?
...
I'd rather wait more for a well translated, well edited chapter for pretty much everything I read.
Double pages are a turn off. Badly edited pages prevent me from reading things...

I feel frustration when I see massive amounts of groups doing things like naruto and bleach, or smut and what's not, but neglect other good manga...
Yeah, it's a matter of taste, but what's the point?
2-3 is already too much, but more?

But in the end, you know what? If I can get the manga I like, I can manage to over look those situations.
Scan groups are free to do whatever the hell they want. (just don't fight over projects XD).
If people want to read scanlations from certain groups, so be it.
Don't rant about how others do things faster.

~.~

________________
Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.

And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.