No, I don’t see why they should be. You can, though, do this manually yourself if that’s what you want to do when you put in the wrong answer to a review. I don’t see why this should be forced on to everyone.
Also, you mention about similar looking kanji but what if for 半 I actually typed in the answer for something isn’t visually similar? Is the system then going to demote anything that isn’t visually similar but has a similar meaning or reading? It seems odd that you would want this to only happen to visually-similar kanji when I’ve sometimes, due to rushing, have typed in either the reading or meaning of something that is not similar looking. Your idea would have far more wide-reaching implications then I think you expect.
By whose definition of similar? And why only for those that are similar by this definition? Beyond that, I still don’t understand the point of this request to begin with and why I as a user would want this enforced on me.
On one hand, I can totally relate to mixing up two kanji, and wishing that they would show up together the next time around. On the other hand, I definitely understand the concern that such a feature would be too far-reaching, too subjectively-defined, and could deter users.
I think @Shadkat’s dream script up above is a pretty clever approach to this problem, although I think it might be more straightforward to demote a kanji’s buddy upon an incorrect reply, but allow them to level up separately.
I think the core of the problem here, though, is answering a WaniKani item incorrectly in a context outside of the WaniKani review for that item.
I've certainly done that...
For me, this comes up when I get an item wrong in extra reading, or when I’m in a WaniKani lesson and I incorrectly anticipate a reading, or even when I confuse one kanji for another.
It seems like the solution that we’ve been suggesting is to intentionally answer an item incorrectly the next time, which I have also certainly done! Of course, the obvious disadvantage is that you have to wait for the item to come up in the reviews again.
Sometimes I think it would be really nice to have a “demote” button right on the WaniKani page for a given item. That way, I could click the button anytime, and WaniKani would mark it as if I got it wrong in the review. I think that would solve this, and many other gripes without getting in the way too much.
I dunno, is there already a script like that maybe? What do you guys think?