imo, legacy of arrogant (highly opinionated?) devs, but now more of ineffective devs.
WK has been kinda odd for having a big ecosystem of UserScripts for website, third party additions on a fragile web surface.
Content team is more hopeful to ask for, imo, though not exactly active, like writing articles and making podcasts.
It seems like tensions are a bit high in this thread. At the risk of making them higher, I want to say that we do have a response on our official FAQ as to why we do not have a typo or undo button: Does WaniKani Have an Undo Button? | WaniKani Knowledge
Some people will not agree with these views, which is okay. We understand that everyone has different opinions on learning, and we understand that WaniKani will not be the right tool for every learner. However, we do listen to this feedback and take it seriously when we discuss the types of changes we want to make.
Why?
Say that feature exist as opt in, how would it lessen your own experience of wanikani?
I could understand if this would be impacting everyone, but it it can be totally optional.
The problem isn’t illusion of knowing. It’s the reality of doing wanikani during comute, on my phone, on a moving train. Just fat finger problem.
It just make the experience frustrating and stressful. If I hadn’t lifetime, I would have gone somewhere else already, just because of the lack of that one very simple feature.
nah man, we dont add new features on this platform.
there are no devs working here anyway so, if you want a new feature, you better teach yourself how to write scripts.
I’m a developer for a living, I’ll gladly fix that for them, for free, if they get me access 
This might be a bit controversial but where the topic of an undo feature gets murky for me is the fact that Wanikani is a monthly subscription service.
Your progress throughout this program is locked behind waiting to review items and clearing them in order to progress to new content. In other words, the user can’t completely control the pace at which they want to go because no matter what, you are waiting pre determined time intervals to have a chance at unlocking new content.
I think this is where things get frustrating. Making an error or typo on something you feel to be unjustified doesn’t just result in you having to see that item again later, it holds you back from progressing and seeing new items which you feel ready to add to your repertoire. It actively punishes you and holds you back from learning more.
If let’s say I was able to move on to new lessons regardless of some typos I made, I wouldn’t have an issue. But, if a typo results in me having to wait another week, so that then I can finally see some new lessons, it just doesn’t feel good for someone who is eager to learn and wants to see more things.
This is where monthly subscriptions in general leave a bad taste in my mouth because there is an incentive for profit to keep the users subscribing. It’s not my intention to throw accusations, so I sincerely apologize, but in some ways it is profitable to not let users undo their mistakes because it slows down their progress through the content and results in the user remaining subscribed for longer.
To be frank, I sometimes read the message of “we don’t want our users cheating themselves or sabotaging their learning” as a fancy of way of just saying we don’t want our users to be able to finish too quickly. It would be more profitable for someone to spend 2 years being regulated on their progress than for that same person to finish in 6 months and move on to investing their valuable time into other sources of learning.
I think for the most part, people are just looking for more control over their subscription service. If I’m in a position to complete the first 10 levels of Wanikani in a month, why can’t I do this. I have the time, the memory, and the discipline to learn it all just fine. Being concerned about my study habits is my own responsibility. Arguing that I’m somehow “cheating” myself or the system is in someways arguing for the system to be completely in control of my own personal time and monthly activity.
Yes, there are scripts and ways around it. But, it can sometimes give off a bad impression if the product itself chooses to remain as rigid and not customizable as possible while selling a monthly sub.
Third party apps are using the API, which may, albeit rarely, get broken. Some apps, like SD, has offline and sync support, implying it can work by sync once, offline forever, even if API gets eventually removed. (e.g. if WK couldn’t maintain it.)
There are also inspired apps, rather than third party. If you like typing, some websites that come to mind is KameSame and Kitsun.io. Mnemonics and radicals are on a difficult position, but the choices get easier if you don’t care about that.
No need to get trapped by sunken cost of lifetime paid once. Time cost is continual.
Maybe you’re right, and I should look at kitsun, think I get lifetime cheaper being marumori subscriber.
If anything, this answers makes me feel even worse about the issue. Like “you’re not worthy of using our service if you can’t type perfectly.” ugh.
Wanikani being generally meh is one of the main reasons I switched to anki (that and I can do whatever I want in anki). I find I actually ctrlz more often to change a right answer into a wrong one. Like when I assume I’m right so 3 it on default but as I do so read the answer and realise it’s wrong and now I’ve gotta go back and 1 it.
Still I’ve got lifetime so phases (like now) of coming back here for the kanji don’t hurt me. Probably wouldn’t bother to come back if the subscription needed renewing.
kitsun is awesome!!! 
and if you need help with stuff there’s a discord for kitsun as well and you can use kitsun for other languages and other things (not only japanese - there are also community decks as well) if you reach out to nec, if you haven’t already there used to be a free 2 week trial so you can decide if the tool will work for you.
If it weren’t for kitsun wouldn’t ever have finished wk - migrated everything away at level 44 after the last major script breakage madness - (sunk cost or not) wanted to finish the material.
I know I would abuse the “oops I made a typo” option if it was available. I am happy it is not here, because it would get in the way of learning Kanji far more than dealing with the typos I do make. I would actually find the site much less useful if this feature were added.
I am not pretending to speak for anyone else; but part of the reason I chose waikani is precisely that it is a little inflexible, because I know I find it too easy to convince myself I know a word when the truth is I did not know it well enough.
None if this is an argument why this or any other feature shouldn’t be available for others.
It could be hidden in the parameters though, not automatic, but under potentially dangerous features, with a message that if you overuse it it could hurt your progress, and you’d just toggle that to turn on the feature.
I am going to try being a little more clear then.
I am paying for wanikani, and one of the reasons I chose to pay for it instead of something else or working through learning kanji on my own is precisely that it does not have an undo option. There are other services available that have what you’re looking for, and I know from experience I cannot use them. I don’t appreciate being told I should have to put up with something I do not want because someone else wants it, especially when the lack of this feature is why I started paying for a service in the first place.
counting down to new feature…
only 18 days left…
I see where you are coming from and I respect your viewpoint as well.
This might be a silly comparison, but it reminds me of a situation I sometimes go through when I’m dieting. I’d rather not have any junk food in the house no matter what. Even if it is sitting somewhere in a cupboard away from me, the fact that it exists within my reach has the potential of me failiing to reach my goals. I find it much easier to stay disciplined without any temptations around me.
Having said that though, if I am sharing a house with family or roommates, it becomes a bit trickier for me to keep such a strict environment. Just because it bothers me that I might not be able to resist certain things, I don’t want to limit or restrict others living around me. It seems more compromising for me to require more willpower and stick to my personal goals/restrictions, rather than creating an evironment that makes others around me unhappy.
Either way, I have ways around making unjustified mistakes on here, so whether this feature is officially added or not is honestly not such a big deal for me.
Same issue for me
My thumbs are too big for these tiny letter buttons
I do reviews in batches of 10 so if i make a typo during the first few i exit out
Typos happen very often
Exactly.
You can make it fully optional, will help lots of users, change nothing for the rest.
There is no valid reason not to have it.
Except there are people who have a reason not to want it at all. I do not trust myself not to turn it on when I know I am going to have a huge number of reviews from guru/master/enlightened level coming. If I am doing over 100 reviews a day, odds are I will be making at least one typo, so there is a reason to turn it on.
Which is exactly why I do not want to even have the option. I specifically chose wanikani because it does not give me certain options I know or suspect that I will abuse, and I find it pretty clear that “paying customer says the lack of this option is part of why I use your service” is a valid reason not to add it.