Something that has bugged me for a while, both on the website and on the iOS app is that new items sometimes slip me by. As I understand it, a new item is pushed back into the queue if, first time around, it is marked as correct. I guess that’s fine if you do, truly, know that item from previous studies.
I, however, find that every new item I add is indeed new 99 times out of a 100. This causes problems when I fail to notice a new item and answer correctly – usually because I have just been studying, say, the writing of a character before being asked for its definition.
Instead of carefully watching out for the (very small) “new definition” label, I would prefer to answer freely, knowing that new items will return to the queue in a day or so; ideally when that definition has, inevitably, left my short term memory.
If possible, I would like new items to be marked incorrectly unless I choose to mark them as correct. It would make my studying much quicker after adding many new words.
I don’t quite understand what you mean by “a new item is pushed back into the queue.” Nevertheless, I am also frustrated with the interval that new items are scheduled at, if they’re marked as correct on the first pass. They seem to get scheduled for an unusually long time. There are two scenarios where I often get the answer right on the first pass:
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For reading/definition/tones - simply guessing right. Or even if it’s a new word that I can work out because I know the characters, I still want the repetition so that I’ll end up really knowing it, rather than merely be able to understand it.
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Writing new words that consists of characters I already know. In this case, it’s an educated guess, but it’s still a guess. So, as with #1, I still want the repetition.
So I’ve resorted to marking everything wrong then they show up the first time - sometimes the second time too - just to make sure the schedule starts out on fairly short intervals.
What can be done? One suggestion is to enable us to reschedule an item. Something simple like a “move to the top of the list” button would be perfect.
I think we’re on the same page. By ‘new items being pushed back’, I meant that, as you say, guessing a new item correctly or even “knowing” it because of very recently studied items, i.e. its corresponding writing part, results in that item not appearing again for too long.
I also mark everything wrong the first time. However, I find this tedious and difficult because of the small notification. Studying becomes very slow when many new items are coming thick and fast.
That’s why I want all new items to be marked as incorrect, unless I choose to mark it as correct.
Further to my suggestion, I have noticed that on the website, if you view a list and click on the character, the window that comes up has a “Reset Stats” button. This wipes both the character’s schedule and historical stats, basically resetting it to be a new character.
So this at least does what we’re looking for. I would still like a way to only reset the schedule, without deleting the historical statistics though.
I agree they should be automatically marked as wrong (or a new status called new, which acts in a similar way), or have some type of pop-up that asks you how well you really know it.
If I have just added a new list by hand, and then immediately go to study it, almost all of the words will still be in my short term memory. They get pushed back, and are well forgotten when they come up again.
I too often don’t realize an item is new. The “new” flag is rather subtle. My solution is to only use manual adding. I will add twenty items at a time, and pay close attention over the next minute, carefully marking them all as incorrect when they come up.
I had this problem too for a while, also particularly in the case of studying a list that had just been created. Usually manually marking them wrong caught enough of them but it’s not foolproof as you said @Benjamin Ironically I overcame this problem by getting very behind with my creation of lists! I’m reviewing/adding words from last term while writing lists with the new term’s words in. Obviously not an ideal situation but there we go!
However, a more general problem is that with any word (new or old) if two parts come close to each other, I get the second one correct easily which isn’t necessarily right, as I was just reminded of it. I’ve always wondered if Skritter “knows” that you just saw another part of it, and adjusts accordingly? I think I heard that the algorithm tries to prevent parts coming too close together but I’m not sure how it handles them?
P.S. @SkritterJake on the forum is there a way of tagging “SkritterTeam” or something to ask a technical question like the above? Otherwise I’ll just always pick on you 
@Amitabha Fear not, the “new item” flag will be a lot less subtle in the design update we’re working on! We’re also incorporating a feature that will teach proper stroke order the first time a new character/word appears in the study queue. With this feature enabled, characters/words will be marked as incorrect the first time they appear in the queue to avoid some of the problems everyone has discussed in this topic.
@Catherine We don’t have a “Skritter Team” tag, but all of us will see any topic you’re creating in the Meta category. I try to check the forum as often as I can but feel free to tag me if you’re comments are feeling ignored! 
Perhaps related to this issue:
0/1 for writing and yet this item was only 110% due 4 weeks later,
