This is awesome and I’m really looking forward to it. My only concern is that even with the initial 60ish vocab being released across multiple levels, there’s not much room as it is to add more. Are there plans to increase the WK max level?
I’m puzzled. Your developers get first say in what you develop and release and users come second? This sounds like software development culture from the 90s, type we developed this thing, now here, you use it whether you like it or not.
To build on this, check with your user base before you develop and release new features. Also, consider publishing a roadmap and making functionalities optional rather than just rolling them out to everyone.
I believe WaniKani adding Kana-only vocab was one of the signs of the impending Day of Reckoning
I was one of the harshest critics when the big update dropped a couple of weeks ago. This time I have to say that I really like what I am reading. It is a very good step to get more content.
But I don´t think your approach is going to work in a way most users would like to have it. As you can see, there are a lot of users who want more vocab and than there are those who don´t want it. How do you make it so that both sides are happy? Make this a opt-in option (unlockable at lvl 10 as an achievement, maybe???).
By doing so, everyone will be happy. Everyone can do decide if, when and how many they want to do. And to add more benefits to it. If you go forward with my suggestion you can easily add other extra reviews for other stuff like JLPT Kanji, JLPT Vocab, top 2500 Kanji or top 10000 words, making wanikani the ultimate platform.
Those you want it will be happy. Those who don´t want it, will be happy too, because it is an opt-in. And nobody will be overwhelmed because you do as many as you want, whenever you want.
Quick question, wouldn’t it make sense to put in a new api version for this? So the current one ( 20170710) wouldn’t serve any kana only vocabulary, neither the subjects, nor reviews or lessons. Instead the new one would do just that. At least to me this sounds very much like a breaking change and that’s the whole reason behind the revision system.
In the 7 years Ive known this service things have always been this way. A one size fits all solution, do it the WK way or hit the highway! Quality of life? User experience? Good deployment practices? There’s no need for any of that when we have a small cult that vehemently defends anything we do as perfect. ‘It worked for me’ said the cult, and thus the crabigator returned to his slumber knowing that all was fine.
But seriously, Im glad WK is continuing to seek improvement and move in a direction even if I dont agree with the implementation. Its painful, but Id like to think more people will be happy in the long run.
Returning different response types for an existing endpoint (even if as part of a collection) is definitely a breaking change by any sane definition. Clients aren’t expected to be able to handle data they don’t expect.
100% this. I started Wanikani before seriously getting into studying Japanese elsewhere and there are quite a few vocabulary items that become leeches where I’m banging my head against the wall, only for them to make complete sense when I get to a point in my other studies that elucidates the meaning of the kana piece.
I would imagine since WK is only adding 60, which is an extremely small number, that they’re likely related to issues like this, but we’ll have to wait for the actual rollout/announcement to be sure.
For everyone wanting it to be optional, you always have the option to just not do them with reorder scripts. I can’t really see how that’s a complaining point when it’s easily skipped.
If you break Flaming Durtles, then I will no longer be able to do my reviews offline, and my WaniKani journey will come to a screeching halt overnight. I hope you will not do that.
I’m cautiously optimistic! Agree with my other Flaming Durtles friends that the ability for their app to support this change will make quite a huge difference for me in terms of how I study currently. I know the app dev only has so much spare time to make updates.
EDIT: Now that Smouldering Durtles is a thing I’m feeling okay about this overall!
Scripts break, as the reason for this thread in the first place. And, given that WaniKani was initially conceived as a way to learn kanji, this is a step toward a grander picture. I’m certainly okay with that, but, given that grander picture is currently remains a notion, it’s fair to request that the ability to skip the kana only vocab be included as native.
The update is inline with our revision policy (see the second bullet point). There is a good chance that this change doesn’t impact the third party apps, but I can’t be sure hence the 2 week notice period.
Tofugu is a private company developing a product.
They take user feedback - constantly, if you look - but yes, their developers get first say. That doesn’t mean it’s the only say; the team regularly make changes in line with user feedback, bugfix, deal with forum issues, and adjust items.
With all due respect, the very point of Scott’s post here was to give notice that they should expect it. I’d also suggest that a well considered application would have a way to deal with out-of-scope date, whether it be pointing it at null, or otherwise disregarding data.
The relatively unknown FIFTH horseman of the apocalypse
Yes, but that is what this advance notice is for. As far as I’m aware, I’m pretty sure Kumirei will be making the necessary changes in the script, so as things stand now, there really is no issue.
Kana vocab seems like a good addition but mixing it with the kanji studies seems like a massive blunder. Having a kanji track and a kana track makes way more sense and would break less dependencies. I appreciate you giving script authors a heads up but it’s sad that they are so desperately needed because the WK devs are so tone deaf. Just railroading features in and ignoring ten year long community feedback and massively popular scripts. Then only engaging with the community on your terms.
Undo button. Reorder settings. Auto commit settings. Phonetic-semantic composition. Any learning rate adjustments. Mark items burned.
Address these concerns, get some actual community feedback and polls integrated into your development process, have opt-in beta features for months and people will stop screaming bloody murder every time there is an update. Bunpro has done all of these things and more and actually listens to their community. It would be nice to see some evidence of that from WK.
Is someone going to be reviewing アメリカ for a year because they can’t mark it burned? That would be absurd.
An example of a PR win: Hey everyone! Your massive support over the years has enabled us to add a bonus Kana vocabulary track to WK! This bonus Kana vocabulary track is strictly more of what you have always loved about WK and your Kanji track remains unchanged. We also implemented the following most popular scripts and request features into WK:
- Undo button
- Reorder settings
- Auto commit settings
- Phonetic-semantic composition
- Learning rate adjustments (-20%, -10%, +10%, +20%)
- Mark items burned
All of these features have been available in the opt-in beta mode for 3 months and all known bugs have been ironed out. If you’d like to enable beta features please go to Settings > Beta opt-in.
WaniKani has always had one very clear and specific goal:
Has that goal changed?
Is WaniKani going to become a general Japanese vocabulary-learning program?
This sounds like a significant departure from the philosophy of the original program. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely different. For beginners who want to learn Japanese from zero, it could be a welcome development.
But if WaniKani is no longer just about learning 2,000 kanji, what else will you need to include? Maybe some basic grammar: particles at least, and the most common verb forms. There have already been calls to add onomatopoeia.
For those of us who first learned spoken Japanese without learning kanji, and then later signed up to WaniKani in order to fill that gap, it may not be such a good fit any more, but them’s the breaks. We are probably a very small minority of WaniKani’s customers.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting that the following was Koichi’s top reply, getting 190 likes:
I think a lot of the opposition to adding kana vocab is coming from people who wanted WK to be a focused kanji-learning tool that they can speedrun, and who view the existing vocab somewhere between a necessary evil and a colossal waste of time. It’s bad enough for these people that they have to slog through thousands of vocab (hundreds of reviews a day!) that ostensibly teach them kanji; slogging through kana vocab is utterly pointless.
I’ve always taken the position that learning more kanji vocab here would be useful for reading, but I have reservations about slowing my already-slow kanji progress with kana-only vocab, so I can see why some people want it to be a separate, optional track.
Clearly, we’re talking past one another.
From my experience: As the others said above, a site that has/had a specific purpose, should always be upgrading toward that purpose. The addition of kana only vocabulary into the current mix of levels downgrades away from the publicly stated purpose of WaniKani. (Learn kanji)
And, in my opinion: Scripts that do anything beyond showing stats–they exist to change that purpose.
Regarding this thread as an update to help script authors: They provided ample time to script authors prior to the recent major update. Scripts still broke. “Scripts are fixable” is not a valid argument, mainly because our premises differ.
SageOnWanikani gets it exactly right (@tofugu-scott):