I’ve talked with people about it in other places of the forum, but I still don’t understand how the reorder script is cheating
I understand that the 1x1 mode (having both reading and meaning back to back) goes against the interweaving strategy of WK, but except for that, what’s the problem if I do apprentice items first?
Unrelated, but back on topic, a good reason for WK to implement some of the popular userscripts is that a user that never comes to the forum might never get to know about them…
A good reason not to implement them is that, well, they are already here as userscripts. They could just put a disclaimer I guess.
Picture this: 2 users have 300 reviews, both feel stretched for time, and one has the script (User A) while the other doesn’t (User B). User B will slog through the guru and beyond kanji to get to the apprentice Kanji so that they can level up at a decent pace, but User A has no such incentive.
In fact, the big temptation for User A is to let Guru vocab stack up and only focus on “the important items” i.e. new ones. However, this leads to both weaker retention since Guru and beyond items are more likely to sit for longer periods of time, and in the worst case, massive backlogs will accumulate for Guru and beyond items.
Well, you could picture this: without the reorder script I would have probably quit WK. Instead, I made it to 60. When I was strapped for time with time critical reviews, it allowed me to quickly dispatch them and go back to what I was supposed to do, then deal with the rest when I have more time. Guru items have been in the pipeline for 1 week or more, they can wait for a few more hours.
If I had to slog through everything, I might miss those important items. When I finally sit down to deal with them, I might have forgotten them due to the extra delay. (And not feel so motivated about WK due to having a less than competitive time, but that’s not true for everyone I guess).
Obviously, it can be abused the way you said, I didn’t think of that. I think a good rule is to never do lessons if you have reviews pending, and WK could just enforce that… (Or put at least a limit to the number of reviews you have before allowing lessons)
Ok, this thread exploded a bit and thank you all for your answers.
Like some said, I totally get the cost + error possibilities, but stuff like timeline so I can manage my time isn’t that hard imo.
I said I’d never use scripts, but today I went and installed some of them. I did timeline + ignore wrong answer + that script that allows you to review a level again.
The 1st and 3rd are not cheating imo, but I can see why some people think ignoring a wrong answer is. For me though it was the best solution so I can progress a bit faster. I tend to write fast in the keyboard and sometimes I press a wrong key. Combine that with my urge to smash the ENTER button as soon as I type something and you can see how much time I’m spending waiting for the kanji to come back again so I can do it right this time.
Something that comes to mind is how Thunderbird (the email client from Mozilla) used to have the Lightning add-on. This add-on was very popular and was installed by so many people, that the new version of Thunderbird now has Lightning installed as an integral part, meaning people don’t have to install Lightning any more.
There are several reasons why they’re not implemented site-side:
anything that gets written needs to be optimised for all the major browsers. That means browser-specific code and testing and making sure the various editions of the code don’t clash. It’s a lot of work.
anything that gets written needs to be maintained. That means that every bit of code will need to be updated when browsers, css, html, javascript, ruby on rails and the databases (mysql, I’m assuming) get an update. That means having to play nice with at least 5 programming languages at the same time.
add to that having those same 5 languages optimised for every major browser … And the work hours rack up majorly. And we’re only at maintaining the site to stay as it is and adding script usage.
add to that anything WK has in the works. Every work hour that goes into the above will not go towards finishing the api v2, making the algorithms adjust the srs timings based on your accuracy, on making sure that lessons are arranged where they should be, that you don’t get another user’s reviews, at cetera.
pedagogically, the WK team believes that minimalism of options is key. I’m not even talking about how multiple options are an opening for inexplicable bugs - I’m talking about how having too many options makes people not choose rationally.
by implementing the scripts at being site-options, WK would have to take explicit responsibility of the result of their use and abuse. They will come across as encouraging their use, and when people end up abusing them, they can ruin WK’s reputation and/or ask for refunds.
I totally understand why WK team don’t want to change their app: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But I think they could mention userscripts in their Knowledge Base with maybe two-three links to the userscripts they like. Many users who don’t visit forums don’t even know such thing exists.
I agree with you. Although the problem with browser testing is not as bad as it used to be when Internet Explorer 6 was king. Especially nowadays with responsive design frameworks. And it would be nice if I didn’t have to keep installing the same userscripts on every single browser on every single operating system on every single computer that I use
However, I also don’t think that the software development team at WK is that big. They are a relatively small company to begin with, and most people actually don’t do software development. And even those who do are probably focussing on EtoEto right now.
Actually “code wise” WK is not really a big thing. It’s nice, it’s shiny but it’s definitely not that complicated. The real value of WK is the content and how the content is structured. I know from my own experience how time consuming support can be. I bet they are doing a lot working on the content and supporting users so there is only little time to work on the app. And if it’s working and people actually extend… why change this?
I think WK could actually use some upgrades, but they are all minor. And if there is nobody to work on it… well.
Maybe they are working on some of these things already or maybe they feel that since others have already done it that they should focus on other things? Regardless I think that adding these things officially would be great. One of the reasons I decide to pay was because of the scripts. For the price they should be offering some of these features natively.
I haven’t installed any scripts yet, but I’m considering ignore wrong answer because of typing issues. Either I type too fast and make a mistake or I’m having issues with the keyboard on my phone (if I don’t use the Japanese keyboard on my phone it writes the first one katakana). To me I only see it as cheating if you don’t know the Kanji. In that case you are only failing yourself.
and thank you all for your answers.
