It is now almost 3 years since this was originally posted and nothing happened, this is getting ridiculous!
Just flat out admit that the feedback provided by the (paying) customers is ignored, then people can stop wasting their time posting in the forum.
The idea of an SRS system is that it continues on forever (or at least that the next review is after the day one dies).
In theory it might work that the lack of reviews can be compensated by natural exposure (aka reading), however in practice not everyone has time for that or even the goal of doing that! In addition, it might very well happen that certain words do not show up, no matter how much one reads. These words will be lost simply because the WK team decided to use SRS in a way it was not intended to be used!
So please, give people an option to use SRS as it was intended to and stop forcefully removing cards from reviews by arbitrarily deciding that X correct reviews are enough to know the word until the wnd of time!
My man, I don’t even know where to start on this. On post number 7 already they said :
And in March of this year (months after the last post) they’ve already launched the extra study feature where you can practice your burned items whenever you want. Is it not taking feedback into account and not caring for your users when a few (15) users out of the thousands request a feature, after they explain that they don’t really want to incorporate this into the vision they have for the service?
If you feel the urge to review burned items, you can go through them with the self study script and unburn the ones you fail at if you so desire, but if a service needs to cater to the exact use-case that every users wants, you’d be so inundated with options that you’d go bonkers. There are alternatives if Wanikani isn’t what you have in mind, there is no one-size-fits-all solution on the market, and clearly this solution doesn’t fit your case, but I don’t see why this would mean they have to change it up for those of us for whom it works.
I have no desire at all to see them more than it takes to get them to burn, because if I still don’t encounter them in the wild enough to remember them, I don’t mind forgetting them for example
As a business, they have to prioritize the most important features that will result in the greatest profit. The fact that they haven’t done anything about this just means that it must be a minor enough issue for people to not care too much (which is also shown by the lack of activity on this thread).
I see multiple posts in this thread from staff acknowledging this. Also, we have chosen to pay for this service willingly in its current state, so we aren’t exactly being scammed. They never promised to offer that, what this service offers is a way to learn kanji.
The idea of an SRS system is to maximize the effectiveness of reviewing material while minimising the time spent doing that. The whole point of using an SRS system is to learn things. If you keep reviewing forever then you need to address why you’re learning it in the first place. Wanikani (like any SRS application) should be used in conjunction with other materials at some point. Ideally, everyone who starts Wanikani will eventually stop because they have replaced reviewing items with actually using those items in the real world (reading, etc.).
Having an SRS system that goes on forever can be convenient to an extent, but there comes a point where you’re reviewing an item once every year or two where you have to wonder whether the system is actually doing anything.
If people are learning items simply for the sake of knowing them but not using them, then okay. It’s bad for those few people. But usually people want to learn kanji so they can actually apply that knowledge in some way.
… If those items don’t appear in the real world, what would be the problem in not knowing them? Naturally less common items you will know less well. It’s the same for your native language.
It’s an arbitrary number, but for the most part people seem pretty satisfied with that number as it gives ample time to get the item into your long term memory. Eventually if you’re studying the language and trying to use it, you’ll come across that item again and you should remember it. If not, then you can reset it then.
Saying all this, I don’t think infinite SRS is a stupid idea. It’d be kind of neat if it was implemented in some way. But it’s by no means a god-given right. If you’re studying a language and trying to use it (which is the target audience of this site), you’re going to be using those items and so won’t have much need to keep reviewing those items in an SRS system until you’re in a retirement home.
Also: This is your first post so welcome! We’re normally very friendly here, I just disagreed with your post.
Yes, when you get the review that would burn an item, just fail it and it won’t get burned. I think you can even get it right and mark it wrong with a script.
The problem that I can see with just failing burn reviews is that it will reset the item at a lower interval and will return sooner than necessary, clogging reviews for no good reason.
Ideally the “right” way to do it would be to keep increasing the interval after burn level (6 months, 1y etc…).
But honestly I’m strongly in camp “why bother”. The way I see it if you actually consume Japanese content and you forget a word there are two possibilities:
Either you forget the word because you hardly ever use it in practice, in which case who cares, learn vocabulary that’s useful to you instead.
Or the word is actually useful but doesn’t come up very often, in which case you can just selectively unburn it to relearn it.
I’ve actually used SRS systems without burn systems before for other languages and found them counterproductive in the long run. I don’t need to be re-taught how to say “to speak” and “to do” and “blue” and “school” on a yearly basis, it’s just a waste of time and when you have a huge number of items in rotation it adds up…
I certainly understand and sympathize with the fear of “but what if I actually don’t know this word for real!” when you burn a card, but I think it’s somewhat irrational from a practical standpoint.
If someone wants to do it, and will either come to the same realization themselves, or just be okay with doing reviews forever, that’s a good enough reason for them to be able to do it, regardless of if it’s practical or not.
Everyone has control over their own study, anyway, it’s not like just because WK doesn’t offer this functionality, they won’t be able to review their burns, it will just be more work for them.
If it’s something that can be done with a few lines of code, I don’t see why not.
Yeah I definitely see where you’re coming from, but as we know WK is extremely opinionated about how it’s supposed to work (I also have my grievances).
One possible workaround is to use an Anki deck with the WK content for extra study, since Anki is completely configurable on that front. I do than for Kanji study myself (not vocab though).
Right but then we cycle back to my original point: I don’t think a userscript could adjust the review interval, only fail/unburn the item who will then fall to a lower tier, which seems annoying to me.
I think you can even get it right and mark it wrong with a script.