Double Check as a main feature for WaniKani?

[ccookf]

Every time this comes up it’s always a discussion on “abuse” as if users are monkeys that only do the wrong things all the time. Ban alcohol because people abuse it yo.

Personally, I learned a good bit from using undo scripts. It’s not just being able to fix mistakes, but also from being able to mark stuff wrong. Times where I could remember a keyword, but not the keyword I wanted associated with a kanji or term. Or times when I used Bunpro SRS and there’d be multiple valid answers I want to try. Of course, there was also the random mishap like fat fingering the virtual keyboard on my phone or whatever.

However, I’ve also switched to JPDB which doesn’t have an undo button and happily use it… because that service doesn’t suffer from the same design flaws as WK. When we talk about things like “abusing” scripts for progress here it’s usually because people don’t want to get held up in their learning process. WK is freaking awful. Levels progression dependent on kanji progression dependent on arbitrary radical nonsense… missing a single thing can set you behind for a couple days for no meaningful reason. It makes the workload uneven if you get stuck at something like 0/0 instead of having consistent lessons + reviews every day.

WK’s content body is fantastic, but actually using it is a headache and filled with little design annoyances that are often addressed by scripts. I see little to no reason why minor features like this can’t get official support hidden in an advanced menu. Extra study was a much bigger feature, one that people also claimed was bad for learning (LOL) and had room for abuse (LOL), but it was accepted pretty quickly in the end.

But since I’m pretty pissed off and just want to insult must of the people crying “abuse” yall sound like conservative republicans living in fear of the boogey man. There is a portion of the community that is crying out about how they would benefit from this, but yall seem incapable of empathizing with direct statements over it because you’re still scared of a few negatives (LOL).

[SkipEtchells]

@MadAsgardian

In fact people are so rude and childish when the script breaks that I hope it’s never implemented, personally. If they do it should have some gamified limits.

Yeah i was reading some weird things too, but these are just emotions. If you use it daily like the most of us do, it gets routine and if you mess that up, some characters cant take that so well. I totally get their frustration, but that doesn’t mean they should write stupid things.

I know you are able to abuse the system. But isn’t that just your own desicion to make? The benefits are more great in my opinion. Especially as a non english native speaker.

[Tooko]

@MadAsgardian

In fact people are so rude and childish when the script breaks that I hope it’s never implemented, personally. If they do it should have some gamified limits.

With all due respect, taking a ‘you’re acting like a child so I hope you never get your way’ is just as childish an attitude.

[pm215]

@ccookf

JPDB which doesn’t have an undo button

FYI, you can effectively undo in jpdb after you hit the wrong button by pressing the browser ‘back’ button and then choosing a different grading. The website will give you an ‘are you sure?’ prompt about regrading the item. (I use this at least once every review session because I get into a habit of ‘say answer, show answer, click OK’, and then I need to hit back for the items I got wrong but autoclicked OK for :-))

[ekg]

@ccookf

But since I’m pretty pissed off and just want to insult must of the people crying “abuse” yall sound like conservative republicans living in fear of the boogey man.

A lot of people on here, do not live in the US. And can still think implementing DC as a standard to be open for discussion. This sort of intentionally trollish commentary is generally not encouraged on these forums.

I think that the discussions on this topic over the years have been incredibly constructive and informative. It’s not a new thing, for sure. And so, some of us has seen a lot of this debate before (surely you’re part of that same experience). There is therefore no need to repeat the tone of voice and invoke US politics on this issue that has nothing to do with it.

[plantron]

Why is it the vendor’s fault if their product is abused? If I have an ATM card, and I give my card including PIN number to a stranger, then they steal all of my money, is it reasonable for me to blame my bank? If I drink beer before driving a bus and end up killing dozens of people, is it reasonable to blame the beer brewers? If I have an MBA from London School of Economics, but I never apply for any job and just play games and eat pizza at home every day, can I blame the school?

[NRT]

I see all sides. We’re adults & can be civil here.

If ‘Undo’ were an option that could be turned on, perhaps they could add a humorous warning ‘Beware! The Crabigator will be very disappointed in you if you use it too much.’ & a funny gif / link to a gif.

If you really want to cheat & just advance thru levels fast without actually learning, well that’s the user’s choice. Stupid choice in my opinion, but do what you want. I’m (& I assume everyone) here to learn. Rikaikun, dictionaries, other tools aren’t allowed when I do reviews. Use / don’t use what you like.

I used Undo as a tool to help me learn. Without an Undo button I tense up, slow down when doing reviews, sometimes check my notebook before entering an answer. Frustrating, discouraging when I make a typo - I know the answer - ugh I typed ぎ not ぐ. Mistyping o i u is a common mistake for me in daily life. With an Undo button I like to think fast, enter my answer. “Ya know it or you don’t.” In daily life there’s no time to ponder every kanji. If I hit ‘undo’ I ask myself ‘do I actually know it, or was it a stupid mistake?’ If I guessed something right but I don’t feel I know it well enough I intentionally enter a wrong answer so it comes up faster in the queue. With Undo, I think I marked some correct answers as incorrect for that reason.

For me, reviews are a learning experience. Daily life & JLPT are my tests. I have a huge poster in my classroom “Make mistakes. It’s ok. Learn from your mistakes.” At the start of a term, some students are hesitant to speak, afraid to make mistakes. In class they can relax; it isn’t a test. Learn from your quizzes, other mistakes. Midterms, final exams, TOEIC are the tests. Love seeing how the students improve. Want to get good at a skill? Practice, practice, practice. Draw lots, cook lots, keep working to the desired result. Practice your musical instrument or sport a lot & keep making improvements. Enjoy your practices, keep making progress. If you’re scared to make mistakes you’ll practice less, won’t improve as fast.

Some WK users don’t care at all about Undo. For me, oh gosh I miss it, enjoy WK less, reviews are an unpleasant chore. With Undo I wasn’t scared to make mistakes. When speaking with Japanese friends I’m not worried about mistakes, feel free to speak more.

Be nice, everyone.

[ekg]

[ekg]

@NRT

If you really want to cheat & just advance thru levels fast without actually learning, well that’s the user’s choice.

The one thing I see against this, is that while WK is not at the moment a way for you to claim that you know Japanese on your CV, they are unlikely to want to diminish the possibility of becoming that in the future.

That is a real issue. While reviews are not tests, they’re also not the same as the ANKI-method of just continuing to the next item and say however well you knew the card.

I think they want to avoid this bog of confusion about what a year or two doing WK entails. That, it’s a real achievement - which also goes into the whole gamification mechanics.

If you cheat throw the whole thing - what’s left of WK? As an app? If that’s standard possibility? Again, what’s the point?

Edit:
I think the wider issue is that people want a third option between WK and Anki, rather than either of these to change. (well: selfishly, they want either of these to become their third option more likely)

And WK is obliging that crowd at the moment with third-party apps and add-ons, but…

[pm215]

@ekg

The one thing I see against this, is that while WK is not at the moment a way for you to claim that you know Japanese on your CV, they are unlikely to want to diminish the possibility of becoming that in the future.

I would rate the chances of “WK is a thing worth putting on your CV” ever becoming a serious thing as solidly less than 1% (for multiple reasons), so I don’t think it should be a factor in anybody’s decision-making.

[ekg]

@pm215

I don’t think it should be a factor in anybody’s decision-making.

So you think. But, it is possible that it IS a decision-making thing for the WK-team. That is all I was suggesting. I have no clue for sure for real, and I thought I also made it clear what doubts there were about this as well.

[simias]

If people want to cheat they easily can, using third party scripts, extensions like yomichan or even just checking the answer in a different browser tab before submitting. If anything having a first party undo option would make it easier to track who is “cheating” and who is not, they could decide to grant a special completion certificate for people who don’t use undo for instance. They could also decide to disallow undo for burn reviews to make sure that you really know the item. They could also limit the amount of undos per day. Or you could gain “undos” by answering correctly, like one undo for every 10 correct answer for instance. By relying on third party scripts and apps to implement this basic feature they give up any control and it does nothing to prevent abuse.

I think WK just likes doing things their way and they’re very set in their vision.

That being said I 100% think that they’re wrong about their decision not to have undo by default. Anybody wanting to go fast with their Japanese studies absolutely needs this feature in order to avoid wasting time triple checking every answer or getting unnecessary reviews. Since WK also gates progress based on guruing kanji, a typo could set you back days if it prevents a level up or unlocking kanji.

[ekg]

@simias

I think WK just likes doing things their way and they’re very set in their vision.

I thin that is exactly what I also wanted to point out.

@simias

, a typo could set you back days

Is only something that’s happened to me a couple of times though. But there are times when that’s the one typo that didn’t answer correctly an item that could have taken you further. I get that.

I’ve experienced it several times, but, it just didn’t - face me?

[Norbosan_2]

Just a thought. What if ‘undo’ was a limited feature that a user received credits for as the result of good performance. You do well in your reviews, Wanikani gives you a number of undos to use at your discretion (for typo’s etc). That way you have the feature but you can’t really abuse it.

[Nirgan]

@ekg

But, I think it’s been mentioned before, they don’t want to add too many functionalities to WK that all must be updated and kept going. I’m assuming, that’s because their team is so small, they can’t really handle that sort of thing.

The question is why is the team so small then? This is pretty expensive service, not something free or something that requires just one time reasonable payment and it has decently sized user base. It is of course fine to create pretty good service and profit of it for longer period of time while having low cost of maintanance, but if they chose such strategy, they shouldnt be excused from criticism due to their smaller team.
The same thing is true with scripts, as service you cant use existance of them as your advantage (no need to implement something as scripts cover it already so if its neccessary for someone, they can do iit that way) while not accepting downsides of it (its not our fault that its not working, we didnt make it), if they dont want to get negative backlash, maybe they should implement those core features themselves.

I think both informational scripts like visually similar kanji and confusion guesser, and function scripts like lesson reorder (to some limit) and double check should be the part of the base product. I like the gamification WK achieved here, but some people forget that this is not a game or some certification, this is foremost tool to learn, so providing better options for that is never dumb choice. Not implementing something because people could misuse it is quite weak excuse, even now some people without scripts chose to “cheat” by closing the window and starting the reviews again, or double checking with IME / jisho, are they going to somehow stop people from doing that?

Also “im doing this without x and its fine, so is it really important?” is kind of irrelevant argument here, some people need glasses while i dont - i see perfectly fine without them, should i shame them for needing something i dont?

[ekg]

@Nirgan

The question is why is the team so small then? This is pretty expensive service, not something free or something that requires just one time reasonable payment and it has decently sized user base. It is of course fine to create pretty good service and profit of it for longer period of time while having low cost of maintanance, but if they chose such strategy, they shouldnt be excused from criticism due to their smaller team.

Maybe you are just misunderstanding the real costs of anything. At the very least, neither you or I have knowledge about the financial realities for WK.

If they’d be a European company I’d put pressure on them as for info - IF I actually were interested. Personally, not so much. so no.

[SkipEtchells]

I support Nirgans answer. WK isn’t cheap compared to other tools. They should have all the possibilities to work on such requests. I will not assume anything. Would be nice to have an opinion from the staff about it.

[simias]

Yeah I don’t really buy the financial justification. A basic undo button is a day worth of work including design and testing.

They don’t implement it because they don’t want it, for better or worse. It’s not a technical or financial issue.

[SketchingDays]

Personally, wanikani would be unusable without an undo button. I’m already at 200+ reviews per day with 1 lesson per week, if typos, and “close enough” were considered as wrong it would balloon to 300-350+. Let me make a random example: if I write “gorgeous” instead of “beautiful”, I couldn’t care less, it’s correct to me. The subtle nuances I’ll learn by reading and watching shows.

[Fryie]

@ekg

The one thing I see against this, is that while WK is not at the moment a way for you to claim that you know Japanese on your CV, they are unlikely to want to diminish the possibility of becoming that in the future.

Do you really think this is a valid argument?

I see a disconnect here between people who think that WK is a tool that aids your language learning process, and as such, should be used flexibly and according to the specific circumstances and necessities - and other people who appear to think that knowing all of WK’s content perfectly is a goal in and of itself. I don’t subscribe to that latter view, so the idea that using WK in a particular way constitutes “abuse” is a bit ridiculous to me.