akuperma: “If the Artscroll was being honest, every word would have oodles of footnotes conveying the difficulty and alternative readings, and the translation would be unreadable.”
How would leaving out every single thought on a subject, as you suggest, be an issue of dishonesty???
The irony of all this is that the added clarifications put into Artscroll shas are written in there by experts who study with untranslated shas. You are getting in writing what you would get if you were sitting across from them, except they check the sources more carefully at their desks at Artscroll.
That being said, this argument for all of us is pointless.
On a personal note, I am so grateful to Artscroll. I would hope those who are good at learning would understand it’s value and find it not necessary to belittle it. There must be some tools you use that people holding a higher madrayga would not use. That does not mean those tools are substandard. Dont better learners benefit from a world where more people are coming back to Torah Judaism? Dont those returning benefit from those who learn in yeshiva?
I think Artscroll shas and untranslated shas is not a “versus” situation, it is a win-win situation.