Hi, Does anybody know if Wanikani will ever have more… like, better things. Not just the current SRS kanji system that we know and love. It’s had the same system for years and years, and I know it gets updated often, in the sense of, fixings words, bugs, and adding vocab or new kanjis here and there.
But the other apps and websites are catching up it feels like, and Wanikani is a subscription service after all. So… Will there ever be more? Like… adding kanji games or something fun like that to help retain the knowledge. New apps within the website that just expand on things we can do in Wanikani.
Or hell… how about just an official app for the iphone already?! xD We all know that one is way… WAY overdue, and I cant figure out for the life of me why it’s not been done already. I know there are a couple apps made by users out there that are pretty good, but still. Discord server? Tofugu needs to get with the times… Discord server is whats up right now, not forum boards, I know i would love to chat with people about WK and Japanese in real time, not on a forum. Tofugu has the resources pay people to mod the Discord server, and we are all good. (I heard before this was an excuse for not having one.)
With so many user made apps, and add-ons and stuff made for WK, sometimes it feels like Tofugu just leaves it up to the community to do their job, which is to develop and improve the platform.
I cant help to think that development has become lazy, for WK. Anybody correct me if I’m wrong though.
Just some constructive criticism. I love wanikani and I’m a lifetime sub. : D Feel free to share your thoughts. : )
I like the forums. They seem to move in real time to me. And the organization is much better. Can you imagine having a discord channel for every single book club, rather it was currently running or ran six years ago?
I don’t think WK or the community needs extra fluff.
That to me is a strong indicator of success right there. Having the tools to do this (with the WK API and also them being mindful of the userscript ecosystem) lets people try their own ideas with the existing platform. If I were managing Tofugu then I’d be pretty pleased that WK has been kept down to what’s successful and not risking it by changing the focus.
Just because you hit the nail on the head once doesn’t grant you have the ability to keep on doing it!
This is something we don’t really know. We know they have a revenue stream, yes, but we don’t know what that money is being spent on. There was a phone app in beta (alpha?), but it was pulled, so that might well have been a lot of money down the drain. They’ve also been trying to work on EtoEto for years now.
I’m not saying WaniKani shouldn’t expand or diversify, just that I think it’s ignoring a lot of factors to say the lack of apparent development is purely because they have a laissez-faire attitude towards WK as a whole, and are choosing not to do anything while having the time, money and man-power to do a whole bunch of stuff.
Again, not saying that I think WK is some flawless thing, just pointing out some things that should also be considered in my opinion.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if a Discord server might not be high on their list because it would basically need two to four full-time people working in different time zones to have it fully covered. On Discourse forums (why are those names so close…? I have to think about it every time) there are at least some features like x number of flags on a topic automatically closing it. There are some built-in tools that make it a bit harder for things to devolve into an absolute dumpster-fire.
Trust me if there is people who make apps for wk for free, there will be bucket loads of people willing to mod for free, there are in every community. For free or dirt cheap. And not in a derogatory way, modding a server is easy work, and everybody knows it.
I suggested Tofugu has the resources, cause recently they been on a hiring spree. : D I received some email notifications from tofugu with a lot of positions they hiring for.
Thanks for the feedback!
I mean… sure?? I dont have much hope for Etoeto, since its a textbook that has been in development for… 5 years? More? … for a textbook? Hmmm… That is just very weird if you ask me. Dont get me wrong, whenever it comes out, if ever, I’ll be hyped for sure. I just hope its some sort of interactive textbook, or like, bunpro for example? if its just a textbook that you scroll through and has audio examples, thats gonna be quiet disappointing imo. But im hoping for the best for it! : )
You couldn’t even read my message properly, so lets chill a bit yeah?
I meant discord server, mod a discord server mate. : DDD
Meaning just be on the server, and make sure people dont post wrong things, or get into fights. Idk what you were talking about
I like WaniKani as it is and I don’t see why they should try to answer to all language learning or social needs. There are several other sources and communities that offer those, and they do it better than WaniKani probably ever could. I don’t really like the idea of one company providing a large selection of services anyway, it usually means the quality is not as good either.
It is also funny to say that WaniKani has the finances to do anything when you yourself are a lifetime subscriber who does not bring any revenue for WaniKani after your initial purchase.
Initial purchase which was quiet substantial ;D and probably wk made a lot more money from me, than the people who sub for a couple months and quit. So I dont think its fair to come at me with that one lol. Im not the one who is offering lifetime memberships.
Tofugu has been hiring people recently, thats why I suggested that. I could be wrong too, sure. But I did see them hiring a bunch of people a couple months back, thats all.
Now, I havent been on the forums in a bit, the point of this thread was not just to complain, was more so to gather information, hopefully somebody could tell me if they heard of upcoming changes or improvements. : ) Thanks for your reply.
the forums are one of the reasons i love wanikani! discord is great, i’m very active on discord. but forums offer features which discord can’t possibly offer. being able to keep an active forum going in the 2020ies is one of the great successes of wanikani!
having been moderating forums and discords and other communities for some 20 years: moderating is hard work.
Oh ok, so you didn’t read the opening post of the thread. Are you for real, you are reading replies out of context and you are blaming me for you not understand it?
Man you need to sit down. xD Did I say my sub pays for anybody’s salary, or even suggested anything close to it? Im not patting anything mate. You need to learn how to navigate forums dude, and stop replying to things out of context. I was replying to a different person who made a comment specifically about my membership. Im just gonna ignore you now as clearly you are not old enough have proper conversations. Hop back in when you learn how to read forum threads.
the forums are one of the reasons i love wanikani! discord is great, i’m very active on discord. but forums offer features which discord can’t possibly offer. being able to keep an active forum going in the 2020ies is one of the great successes of wanikani!
Agreed! I like forums too, I didnt mean to suggest for tofugu to open a discord to replace the forum. The forum has a lot value indeed, specially sharing resources and making valuable information easy to find.
having been moderating forums and discords and other communities for some 20 years: moderating is hard work.
Fair enough, Well I have also mod servers, and I own a few too. Imo is not hard work, unless you have a very rowdy bunch… or the number of members is really really high, in which case, yeah for 1 person might be tought to be keeping an eye on it 24/7. I reckon tofugu’s server would be quiet hefty in members… so a few mods would be needed yeah.
Thanks for your input.
Just maintaining everything as it is costs money, adding in costs for fixing bugs and small content additions slowly pile up too.
Not only that, but is there anything to add that isn’t covered by the API? I’m not saying everything should be done by the community, but when we have working scripts, it seems fair to focus on content that the userbase cannot change (adding/removing items for example) and that is cheaper to do.
It’s also really hard to know how much money they really get. Most users never pay a cent, and the site has no ad revenue.
All in all, hard to judge the team and call them lazy for it.
From my perspective anyway, Wanikani has honed in on doing exactly what it does, teaching the kanji, really well, and anything more would be a detriment. The explicit goal in using SRS as part of your language studies is that SRS tries to target the estimated minimum amount of reviewing needed to keep the information in your head. I’m sure kanji games and the like would appeal to some people but, given how much prodding the team behind WK does to encourage moving out to grammar studies and interacting with the language for real (as they should), I imagine their thinking is somewhat like mine – we should only be using WK the amount that is necessary to learn what it’s teaching. The goal is, truly, to use this site as little as possible while still learning.
I dunno, I feel like I got more than enough from my money, and I’m not going to ever fight against the idea of more features that I might not use, but I personally find it all very unnecessary.
I noticed Tofugu Jobs page isn’t looking for a Project Manager. That probably has something to do with it lol
I think Koichi (or whoever’s in charge of PM) is a bit of a perfectionist, which to be fair is why WK is so amazing. But I agree they are leaving a lot of amazing opportunities on the table.
I’m perfectly happy with the service provided by WaniKani and the fact that our subscription money also goes to enable staff to produce excellent content for the main Tofugu site as well. The service provided her is extremely specific; providing the best kanji learning SRS system possible and I think their ongoing development to this end is the most useful thing they can have their staff do.
