So the scenario is that a user (say, me) who disappeared from WaniKani for a couple months came back to a bunch of unfamiliar vocab in their review pile. There’s a bunch of crazy words that I don’t remember, but there’s also some stuff in there I remember just fine.
I think it would be nice to have a “sudden death” style of reset. Where you can get something knocked down to “SRS Level -1” and then it goes back into Lessons.
It would be kind of a painful session, watching all those items go back into Lessons. But then you can actually not have 200+ unfamililar Apprentice items to try to review. (That’s a very unproductive situation!) Instead, you can just treat it like learning new content, and you can control the pace!
I don’t know if I can say at this point. I think that would take some hands-on experimentation.
My gut says for a first version of the feature, it could be a distinct mode that is activated through the Danger Zone / email thingy. You can complete it or abandon it at any time. To re-enter the mode, do the Danger Zone / email thingy.
Just like you can resurrect a burned item, I think it really makes sense to be able to reset to the lesson state. This could solve most problems with leeches in my honest opinion. It gives you a 2nd opportunity to approach x item.
I think for leeches it would make more sense to do it manually, like resurrecting burned items, as you say. I imagine the ‘sudden death reset’ applying more to a massive pile of reviews.
Many leeches oscillate between Guru and Apprentice (even sometimes reaching loftier heights!) so it might never drop down far enough.
Oh yeah, I think this idea would be a very good one only if it was to be manually applied. Doing this to hundreds of items at a time would only disrupt the system.
Bunpro has this for individual grammar points and I think it works wonders. If I feel like I don’t “get” a grammar point after a good amount of time I just knock it down to the beginning, re-browse the sources that Bunpro gives you, and try again with a clearer understanding.
Of course, studying grammar points that apply to different situations is different from studying individual kanji and words, but I think the principal could still work.