Suggestion: maximum number of ghosts

Bunpro
#1

I love ghost reviews, and want to leave them on to get the extra practice. However, it’s discouraging that at my current skill level, they seem to be ever-increasing. I dislike it when I see new non-ghost reviews in the queue, because I know they’re just a chance for me to fail and thus increase my total ghost count.

I had an idea that I think would make this a lot better: don’t try to to introduce new sentences for a given grammar point if I have more than, say, 3 ghosts on that grammar point. That would give me something to work toward: if I kill a ghost, I can look forward to being introduced the a new sentence for the grammar point, and possibly increasing its SRS level.

Unlike the “minimal ghosts” option, this continues to quiz me on every sentence I get wrong, and encourages me to drill until I understand it and get it right consistently. But, it avoids ghost overload. What do you think?

6 Likes
#2

Yeah, to be honest, the “On” setting in general feels far too aggressive.

I switched from “Minimal” to “On” when I was averaging ~20 reviews per day, and after only a week or so, the count shot all the way up to ~150 reviews per day with an accuracy of 70-80%.

 

Granted, a stack of ghosts takes much less time to tear through than a stack of grammar I haven’t seen in a while because they’re in later-stage SRS intervals. Still, I’d suggest not spawning any ghosts for grammar points that are “younger” than SRS ~5 or so, since the whole point is to remind you of nuances that may not be present in the other reviews.

I don’t think this will be achieved if all we’re doing is bombarding the user with reviews for every single slip-up, which could be due to forgetting the necessary word, using the wrong particle, making a conjugation error, mismatching with another part of the sentence, a typo…

 

EDIT:
I think ideally, someone should go through every single review sentence and determine whether or not there’s something “tricky” about each one. These “tricky” sentences could be flagged as capable of triggering ghost reviews.

In other words, only spawn ghost reviews when there’s some nuance that isn’t present in the other reviews for the same grammar point.

4 Likes
How does the SRS work
#3

I agree, especially with the part about delaying Ghost Reviews until later SRS levels. I found the current way overwhelming to the point that I had to turn it off.

That said, maybe there should simply be a “study more” button, which if manually clicked will add the failed item as a Ghost Review.

3 Likes
#4

I have my Ghost Reviews on “On” and I honestly like it the way they are right now. Getting a ghost review of a general concept (not a nuance) early on isn’t ideal, but so is getting it wrong. I dont really mind the extra practice on the few that I do get wrong early, especially because ghost reviews tend to be pretty quick.
If you are at the point that you’re getting overwhelmed by ghosts, it’s probably a good sign to slow down the lessons.

Then again, adding more options is probably a good thing :stuck_out_tongue:

Side note: Is there an excorcist 3 badge? :heart_eyes:

4 Likes
#5

I was only doing 1-3 lessons per day for about a month, then 0 lessons per day for 2 weeks (because there were no more to add). Then, after 3 days of switching from Minimal → On, I went from ~20 reviews per day to ~150.

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think that’s quite how they’re intended to work.

 

I like that idea a lot, actually…

2 Likes
#6

Yes. ^^

5 Likes
#7

In my opinion, 3 lessons per day is pretty fast if you don’t already know the grammar.
You’d work your way through something like Genki II in 3 weeks.

If you took a two week break after your last lesson, most of them wouldn’t really have been in the lower SRS stages either?
With WaniKani, if I get a vocab wrong that’s about to hit enlightened, it’ll most likely turn into a leech. I won’t see it again for quite some while and if I get it wrong again, it’s definitely a leech. That’s why with WaniKani I have to study failed items so that doesn’t happen.
I don’t need to do that on Bunpro.
If I’m getting something wrong on higher levels, ghosts take care of that.

For me, ghosts do exactly what I need them to.

5 Likes
#8

Yep, @xBl4ck you describe exactly why I leave ghosts on. They make a lot of sense at higher levels. The problem is more at the intermediate levels, where I get a sense of dread on seeing a new non-ghost review. (Or as I call them now, potential-ghost-generator reviews.)

Bunpro is simultaneously trying to increase my SRS level, at the same time as it knows that I’ve got 4 ghosts for that grammar point floating around, so clearly I need more practice with it. I’d rather it take a break from trying to level me up until I’ve got a better handle on my existing failures.

Once I reach a high SRS level on a point, with no ghosts, generating a ghost whenever I miss it is a great way to reinforce any issues and prevent leeches. But at the lower and intermediate levels, for grammar points you’re only starting to grasp, they just keep accumulating.

6 Likes