Apprentice levels are also very low levels to begin with. Only a typo on apprentice level 4 would do significant damage to a level up.
That depends entirely on your availability for reviews. One bad radical typo could really screw you.
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I agree with you, but unfortunately some people get caught up in the “game” of reaching level 60. It’s a shame too, because the few people that do that aren’t really learning.
I think they should probably give in and add it at this point, but I understand why they don’t.
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There’s one legitimate time that override is necessary, and that’s generous given what we’ve established about workarounds.
It’s not typos, because that’s just a symptom of rushing.
It’s when WK contains wrong or incomplete info for an item. But then you email them and it doesn’t happen to any other users.
I tend to agree with you on multiple points:
- doing fast levels without the override made me sweat bullets. The stress was really hard to bear. Having the override would have been nice from the peace of mind point of view (as I would not be destroyed by typo)
- I agree that, regardless of their philosophy the team should make WK more flexible.
BUT:
- it’s also really tempting to shoot oneself in the foot, as you said. During the above mentioned fast levels, I was resolute to ignore errors that would have prevented from leveling at max speed (e.g. a fourth kanji mistake or something like that). Luckily, I didn’t get in that situation, but I would have done it (using the poor man’s override aka private mode, though, since I’m mostly on my phone with no user scripts).
- it’s really hard to convince a dev team that is already busy to work on something they fundamentally disagree with. You may get them to reluctantly put it on the roadmap, but literally anything else will take priority…
This was fun to read
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WK team: We have heard this idea several times and have several reasons we do not want to implement it, it would be easier if you guys didn’t post the idea in the forums.
Idea: gets posted on forums
Idea: devolves into argument about given reasons they’re not implementing idea
I say Tofugu cuts to the chase and just deletes WaniKani completely
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I am someone who greatly benefits from no override button, because I know that I do the “yeah I knew that” thing with anki, but I can’t do that here, and it makes me more accurate.
I have no scripts and I do most of my reviews on my phone. I almost never make typos now because I have learned through making mistakes to check before I submit, and this doesn’t take extra time because I’ve become so accustomed to double checking that it’s automatic. If I do make a typo and fail an item it’s because I’m doing my reviews lazily, which wakes me up and makes me pay more attention, which in turn makes me focus on the remaining reviews properly.
I have failed burns by getting close, but not exact wording of meanings, and some such. This improves my accuracy percent though because I thoroughly know these items, so for that one error I will see that item a couple more times and not make that error again. Oh no, I have to review an item a couple more times and get it better reinforced. What a heinous injustice. 
If they add this feature I would abuse it, because I do on anki, and it doesn’t help me to do so. You can add the functionality just fine with userscripts but I don’t want it as a default because I know I would abuse it, and I’m glad it’s not there. Sometimes the teacher knows what’s better for the student’s learning, just saying.
If you’re getting a lot of typos, maybe that itself should teach you to be more careful or to double check your answers, and you should accept responsibility for that rather than reaching for someone else to blame.
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So then make it an option in user settings, defaulting to not enabled. I think all the apps basically include some way to utilize an undo. For browsers there are tonnes of ways to do it, the only people getting left high and dry, are those who use mobile website, or can’t install browser addons. If you’re worried about abuse, give it one use per session\time interval. It’s pretty demotivating to make an input error after knowing, and saying the correct word aloud. Yeah sure it just means you get more practice, but motivation is a factor that should be considered as well.
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I’ve had many frustrating typos. My advice is not installing userscripts or any of that, but using it as a bucket of ice water to make yourself pay more attention. Oh, and screenshot the error and post about it on the forums in the screenshots or complaint threads. Taking out your frustration with a self righteous whinge and getting it off your chest with a post is very cathartic and can even be funny.
I have mistyped things as I’ve read them aloud. I have made all of these mistakes. I can guarantee if there were an option to switch on an ignore button endorsed by the wk creators on the site, I would have done that in one of these moments especially when I was at a low level, and my reviewing sessions to this day would be lazier, and my kanji recognition would be worse. It’s just part of learning.
If you’re making so many typos that it’s holding you back from levelling (ie bringing you below the 90% radical/kanji threshold) then again, you probably should be doing your reviews more carefully. If it’s a single typo that put you below this threshold because you got others legitimately wrong, then maybe it’ll give you some breathing room to better retain the kanji you got wrong before you stack on more lessons.
I am not convinced this is a necessary feature and nothing I’ve read in the forums so far has changed my mind. Typing in answers, and no room for error, are the reasons I paid for a wanikani subscription over anki. (Along with the ordering of material and staged schedule for new material I guess - again a feature for which I accept that Koichi knows more than I do about the learning of Japanese).
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Confession time: I used override during my time in WK and went near max speed. I guess my “real accuracy” (read as accuracy if I didn’t use override) was already quite high, but my “official accuracy” ended up close to 100% because I was very generous using the script with meanings (I usually didn’t forgive wrong readings, though).
In retrospect, maybe I was shooting myself in the foot, but I think it had a good effect on me lowering the amount of reviews I had to do and allowing me to keep max speed. I don’t regret it, anyway. I learned what I came here to learn. Maybe I’m just not fond of SRS, since I never could keep doing Anki for more than a week at a time, and since I finished WK I didn’t do any other SRS-based thing.
Anyway, maybe not entirely related to the discussion, but I just wanted to share my personal experience.
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I want to add my voice to the side that is happy that no override option comes standard. I also use bunpro, which has an override, and I use it too much. I tell myself I mostly knew that thing, and I really don’t want to see it again, so away it goes. The reason I’m happy to pay for WK as opposed to using anki is the structure and strict format that is hard to get when studying alone. I cringe when I make a silly mistake, but it just makes me remember that item better next time. You can go out and get the function if you really want it, but I’m glad they don’t provide it.
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Unrelated to the thread, I live a short train ride from you in 三木市。
It’s interesting that this is becoming such a passionate issue for someone who’s already reached level 40+.
Just to give my two cents, I recently reset and decided not to use the override script. I make silly typo mistakes sometimes but decided to accept them. And if it sets me back a couple days on a level, a couple weeks or even a few months on a character, then so be it. The overall impact won’t be huge, and at least I know for sure that I’m not abusing the system even just a little bit.
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You guys have the weirdest attitude. Just because you pay for a product doesn’t mean you get to decide how it works. You can have input, sure, but a few dollars a month doesn’t make you the president of WK.
One thing that makes any product successful is when it’s creators have a philosophy and sticks to it. Whenever creators acquiesce to every single demand the product then starts to fall apart.
I love wk, especially for the fact that it is such a well thought out product. I realize that you think that it should work differently, and I can understand why, but there’s no reason to call people lazy just because they don’t want their own creation to work exactly like you want it to.
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Reading my reply again I realize I was a bit rude. I’m sorry for that, I just got a little fanboish about wk…
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Not that I think it applies to WK, especially for what I agree is not a make or break issue. However plenty of companies have gone under, both chasing user suggestions, and ignoring them. This is a forum, a place for people to voice their criticism, and concern. If nobody talks about an issue they are facing, then it’s impossible to say how many people its affecting. Especially just because somebody doesn’t like it.
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Absolutely. But to me there’s a big difference between suggesting a change and accusing creators of being lazy for not implementing it…
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I’m curious who said they were lazy? I did a search in this thread and didn’t see, perhaps it’s because I’m on mobile. In any case I don’t think it’s laziness, and If said that then I shouldn’t have, and I was wrong.
Post number 10. It doesn’t really matter though, I’m sure it’s more emotion talking than actually believing the WK team isn’t doing anything.
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