Find out where you fit in the Fansubbing Political Spectrum (2011 Edition)

[Quarkboy]

I proposed a simple quiz 5 years ago and got some really interesting results here:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=29118

Let's do it again (with the quiz slightly updated) and see if we can quantify any shift in people's opinions as a whole!

Take this simple quiz, and then open the spoiler tags below to see where YOU fit in the fansubbing political spectrum! Like a myers briggs test, except cooler.

Answer yes or no to whether each statement applies to you:

1. I often download dvd or blu-ray-rips after I watch the versions that aired on TV for archiving or because they're uncensored.
2. I often stream anime on pirate streaming sites instead of downloading.
3. When a show is licensed for streaming, but the official streams in my territory are a week later than the airing, I wait for the official stream before I watch.
4. When a show is licensed for streaming, I only watch it if it's available legally in my country and on the official streaming site.
5. I prefer to wait for the best quality fansub group to release than to just take the first available.
6. I archive fansubs to DVD/Bluray/HDDs, and keep them indefinitely.
7. If a series is licensed, I'll delete/destroy any copies of fansubs I have of it.
8. I often download hollywood movie rips.
9. When a japanese company makes a public statement about how fansubs are hurting the industry, I feel angry or insulted.
10. I will download the first release of a show, no matter which group it is.
11. I will make sure that if more than one group completes a series, that I have all of a single groups' releases.
12. Fansubbing licensed anime is wrong and should not happen, no matter what.
13. DVD/Bluray ripping is wrong and should not be done.
14. The most important part of anime fansubbing is the community of fans.
15. The most important part of anime fansubbing is the anime itself.
16. A new, super popular show which causes the an influx of new fans would be bad for the community.
17. Anime shows are not as good as they used to be.
18. I would prefer a show be licensed by any legal company in my territory, even if they censor it, than remain unlicensed.
19. Big fansub groups with lots and lots of projects are better than small, one show groups.
20. Ripping groups like Horriblesubs have no excuse when they take more than a day to release rips from Crunchyroll.
21. If Naruto had not been fansubbed, it would have done much more poorly on Cartoon Network.
22. Funimation charges too much for DVDs and/or Blu-rays.

Spoiler for DO NOT READ UNTIL AFTER ANSWERING THE ABOVE QUESTIONS:

For every question you answered "Yes" to, add the following numbers for each of 4 categories, L,R,C,P If you answered "no", do nothing.

1. +1 L
2. +2 P
3. +2 R
4. +1 R
5. +1 C
6. +1 L
7. +2 R
8. +2 L
9. +1 L
10. +2 P
11. +1 C
12. +2 R
13. +1 R
14. +1 C
15. +1 P
16. +2 C
17. +1 C
18. +2 C
19. +2 P
20. +1 P
21. +1 L
22. +2 L

Now calculate these two numbers, L-R and P-C. These are your scores. The ranges are from -8 to 8.

The higher the L-R, the less you care about the legal issues involved with fansubbing. Very positive L-R indicates you care little about the legality of your actions (in reguard to fansubbing), and don't think it matters or don't care about the effects of dvd-rippers. Very negative numbers indicate that you believe fansubs are only a temporary substitute for a proper DVD release, and are a privilage, not a right, that are allowed us by the japanese companies.

The higher the P-C, the more progressive attitude you have toward fansubbing and the methods/goals it has. Very positive P-C indicates that you think bittorrent is great, and that the most important thing about fansubbing is getting the largest number of downloads and the fastest releases. Very negative numbers indicate that you'd probably prefer if digisubbing had never been invented, and that people still traded anime on VHSs that are shown in people's basements.

Please note that these usage of "Progressive, Conservative, Left, Right" have NOTHING to do with their normal usage in political discourse, and I am totally making up their meaning to apply to fansubbing. Feel free to invent your own terminology if you don't like mine

[cyth]

L-R = 3
P-C = 0

Good job, man.

[Akito Kinomoto]

L-R=-7
P-C=2

Heh, that sounds about right.

[RegalStar]

5/5. Unsurprising.

[Tempester]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Spoiler for DO NOT READ UNTIL AFTER ANSWERING THE ABOVE QUESTIONS:

The higher the L-R, the less you care about the legal issues involved with fansubbing. Very positive L-R indicates you care little about the legality of your actions (in reguard to fansubbing), and don't think it matters or don't care about the effects of dvd-rippers. Very negative numbers indicate that you believe fansubs are only a temporary substitute for a proper DVD release, and are a privilage, not a right, that are allowed us by the japanese companies.

The higher the P-C, the more progressive attitude you have toward fansubbing and the methods/goals it has. Very positive P-C indicates that you think bittorrent is great, and that the most important thing about fansubbing is getting the largest number of downloads and the fastest releases. Very negative numbers indicate that you'd probably prefer if digisubbing had never been invented, and that people still traded anime on VHSs that are shown in people's basements.

L-R = 5
P-C = -4

The L-R part is on the spot. But the P-C part doesn't fit your description.

Spoiler:

I love BitTorrent, I'm thankful for how expansive fansubbing currently is, and no way do I want to go back to the old days of circulating VHSs.

This may be due to how you phrased some of the questions.

For example, I answered NO to question 19 (and therefore missed getting 2+ in P points) because I've seen some small groups fansub a show and promptly disappear, yet they turned out to be the best fansub choice. Take how Yesy didn't sub anything beyond Madoka Magica and ended up much better than GG, which is a large sub group that subs tons of shows. There are some large sub groups that do great and can generally be trusted to do good subbing, but I can't say that big groups are necessarily better than small ones.

And what does answering YES to question 18 have to do with disliking the current fansub situation? I would prefer that an anime be licensed simply because I wish anime to become more popular outside Japan, especially the anime I like. That has nothing to do with wishing digisubbing had never been invented, and yet it gets 2+ in C points for some reason.

[Jan-Poo]

L-R= 2
P-C= 1

But most of the "no" I answered were actually "I don't care" or "I'm cool either way", I reckoned it was better to consider them a "no".

[Kotohono]

L-R 2
P-C 3

So I guess I care some about the legality for fansubs, but not a whole lot that seems right . But a number of the questions were between no and maybe/sometimes but not always.

[Sackett]

L-R = 1
P-C = 0

You didn't have the question: "When available, do you buy licensed DVD/Blu-ray copies of series you already watched using fansubs?"

Which I figure is worth a +1 R, and would make me 0/0.

[Reckoner]

I got a L-R = 5
P-C = -1

I suppose I don't really care all that much about the legality of fansubs.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Tempester

And what does answering YES to question 18 have to do with disliking the current fansub situation? I would prefer that an anime be licensed simply because I wish anime to become more popular outside Japan, especially the anime I like. That has nothing to do with wishing digisubbing had never been invented, and yet it gets 2+ in C points for some reason.

Ah! You're right, I think my "updating" screwed that question up a bit...

The original was "Would you rather an anime be licensed by 4kids than remain unlicensed?"

Since 4kids is no no more, I thought putting "any" as in "even the worst company" would be about the same meaning, but I think you're right...

Hmm, I'll rewrite the question to add "even if they censor it,"... Please rejigger if that makes a difference.

[Vexx]

L=4 R=3 P=1 C=2 l-r=1 p-c=-1

Yeah.. some of the questions made me twitchy, like
question 3 - my *proper* answer would be "does not apply" as I've pretty much dropped streaming as a "not ready for prime time" option.
question 20 - just doesn't seem relevant to anything other than whether Horriblesub had a day being sick or something

and the omission of a question like,
"Do you buy licensed versions of the material even though you collected the subs and rips?"

Probably my biggest change in attitude is that I've drifted closer to "Screw the R1 industry, I'd rather it all stay unlicensed" because the industry repeatedly shows me they can't

1) manage their way out of a paper bag.
2) are untrustworthy about *finishing* projects.

The other thing I'm more acidic about is the prehistoric DVD format standards for subtitles.... fansub sub-titling is often *beautiful* (and MUCH easier to read). Providing physical media of video files (e.g., MKV/AVI/MP4) or digital download ala iTunes would be nice.

Spoiler for My answers from long ago:

I'll bite..... just out of curiousity. My apologies but I've never felt bad about scribbling in the margins to respond to "when did you stop beating your wife" kind of questions...

1. Never
2. No
3. No... but then if I care that much I buy it anyway.
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. Yes
7. No... until I buy it.
8. Never
9. No.. though I thought they were dumb as mud for that move.
10. No.
11. Yes
12. Yes... unless they've gone out of production and it simply isn't on the shelf anymore. Where's the public domain when you need it?
13. Vague assertion.... drop the region coding and we'll talk. I also retain the right under Fair Use to rip for my own personal use, thanks.
14. No
15. Yes
16. No
17. No
18. No
19. No
20. No
21. Yes
22. Hell no.... ask any poor Japanese R2 consumer.

Hmmm, I scored -1=L-R and -1=P-C .... but a couple of answers are responding to "wifebeater" questions and require qualifications.
Fansubs grow in an environment of access vs demand.... if the anime producers released their stuff region-free with subtitles to start with and priced them GLOBALLY competitively... they'd sell a hell of a lot more and still make their investors happy.
The Japanese consumers wouldn't be gouged so badly... they'd sell more units overseas and probably improve the merchandise picture.

[Eater of All]

L-R: 0
P-C: -1

Apparently I'm a very moderate person. I would've assumed I'd get a slightly higher L-R, and a much higher P-C though, considering I DO appreciate digisubbing.

[Roduigez]

L-R = -1
P-C = -1

Seems about right for me, I have many arguments for an against on each matter, so this levels out about right.

[TJR]

L-R = 0
P-C = 0

Answered "no" for all but six questions.

[GDB]

L-R = 3-0 = 3
P-C = 2-2 = 0

I also had three (17, 19, and 21) that I just marked as null because I didn't really feel one way or the other about, or felt it was too broad (eg: 17, some are horrid, some are better, it's a wave of genres and preferences, not a static line).

Honestly, kind of surprised there wasn't any question about actually buying the licensed releases, only about your response to them in regards to your previous downloads.

[Archon_Wing]

l-r =5
c-p =0

lawl fuck the law.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

l-r =5
c-p =0

lawl fuck the law.

Now,now. It is a citizens duty to spend themselves into an oblivion on crappy products.

[DonQuigleone]

L - R= 5
P-C =-1

Obviously I don't care too much about legality. I will say that if I had an easy means to pay a little money direct to the producers I'd probably take it. But I don't really care for supporting the R1 industry, when I can get translations from Fansub groups (and I hate dubs...) what are they offering me?

P-C is where it is because I like my subs high quality, and I prefer using just one group if possible (as switching between various romanisations/formatting can be ugly). Speed isn't everything. Also some of the groups that put out large numbers of series are of frequently dubious quality (I'm looking at Doki here...)

[Envy]

L - R = -8
P - C = 2

Not even a single L for me. That doesn't surprise me. I don't watch fansubs and I have 0% tolerance for people who live in my country and still choose to watch them for shows that get Simulcasts here.

[Triple_R]

-1, -1 for myself

At the end of the day, I tend to see both sides of the issue on a lot of the legality issues, and am not particularly passionate either way.

As it pertains to sub quality, I'm not terribly picky, but I do have some preferences.