[Feature Request] Unlearning

Spaced repetition is great, but there needs to be some smarts for dealing with totally forgotten characters. I’ve been away for a while and now have something like 6000 reviews due. But it’s been long enough that I probably only remember 10% of those. I don’t want to reset my account and lose what I do know, and there is no reason to still show characters that I have no chance of remembering. The algorithm must have some idea of how well I know a character. So it should be possible to add some threshold (optional, user settable) below which the software decides to drop that character from the list and make me relearn it from scratch. This could happen automatically, or be a button somewhere that the user has to trigger manually. Thoughts?

I would LOVE that, it would allow me to keep some progress after a period of inactivity (better than resetting my whole list, which seems to be the common suggestion) and would remove the hugely demotivating massive review backlog.

Thanks for reading!

First, welcome back!

The feature request has been read, and while we don’t have the option to do what you’re asking right now, there are options in the app for resetting individual decks and deck sections, which will give you much more control over what you’re removing from the queue (and what you’ll have to relearn moving forward).

Also, we made a video a while back that specifically addresses using Skritter after a break, which might be worth a watch.

Before you reset or relearn items, I recommend focused review sessions from decks you’re more comfortable with to see how much you remembered and retained after the break, and try not to get too discouraged by the big number of reviews. Continuous mode and limited total cards in a review session are a great way to get back into the habit of reviewing without the added pressure of a large queue number during a study session.

加油!

Thanks for your response. I did watch the video and it’s helpful, but I still think there is room for improvement in this area. It does seem like this is a common problem, and the current solutions are inelegant at best.

That said, taking the advice in the video, I was able to eliminate a few decks and drop my reviews from 6500 to only 3500!..

(I think it’s probably bad form to ask a different question in the thread, but here goes) I seem to remember in the old app (or older version of the current app) having a way where I could review what’s due plus whatever my automatic-add goal was for the day and then stop. Now it seems like my options are to use the Due button, which lets me review to zero, but doesn’t add, or Continuous, which adds, but doesn’t stop and will let me over-review, maybe without realizing it (and also doesn’t give me feedback on how many cards I have done)… Is there something close to what I’m looking for?

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Partially answering my own question. Neither Due nor Continuous add new characters. It seems I have to click on the deck and click Learn from there.

Am I misunderstanding though? I tried it just now, with my auto-add set to 2 (as a test), and it happily let me study more than that (without any indication on screen of how many I had done)

I can see the usefulness of choosing what deck to study, but I really liked the old way where I was just presented with reviews and when I got those down to zero, it automatically showed me a few new cards up to my auto-add limit. Is this behavior no longer available? At the very least, it would be nice if it stopped or otherwise notified me when I reached my goal, and had some indication at the top of how many characters I had added today…

(I realize it’s hard to make everyone happy, maybe everyone loves the new way and I’m just a cranky old timer)

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I’ve had this problem a few times. As you’ve seen, the solution that the app offers is to mass reset/delete old decks.

I got too attached to having all my decks filled up to 100%, but that’s not the optimal way to use this app the way it’s designed. You have to be willing to let stuff go.

An option to unlearn a word or a deck would be great. I’ve deleted and relearned decks several times.
There are, however, known problems with relearning words. See this earlier discussion:

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