Hello, I hope I’m not proposing a change, that has been already discussed at length, but I am hoping my request may reach someone who could at least in theory introduce this change.
I understand the reason Fuzz is added to card dates for, but I would really like the option to disable it. I never noticed this even existed, until learning for my most recent exam, which made me learn a lot of very difficult, dry facts. If a “hard” card comes in 3 - instead of 2 - days, I have forgotten the information more often than not (which really hindered my progress over the past few months). This led to a lot of wasted time and having to completely reset cards, after I have struggled with them for a week.
I have made a reddit post about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/o8zcnk/is_there_a_no_fuzz_addon/
I understand, that many people seem to be in favor of Fuzz, as only a few could sympathize with my problem. However I would love it, if this post at least made someone consider my point of view.
I have already heard of this change and it definitely helps to get a better overview.
Though I would prefer to be able to disable it for harder topics altogether. (at least for the first two reviews, after the card has graduated - especially if i rate the card as “hard”.)
I second this idea. I prefer to be in charge of my workload and I make a daily decision how many new cards I add to keep my daily reviews around 200 cards.
I wish this could be per deck setting in deck options, not a global Anki option.
Rationale for “no fuzz” is that when users want to adjust their deck setting, for example “new steps” or other intervals it is better when Anki doesn’t add fuzz, so that user can check what works for him. For this, real intervals are crucial. “No fuzz” helps to observe how our memory really works.
In my opinion when user is new to Anki perhaps indeed it is better to leave default options, but when user become more advanced and gets more understanding how Anki work it is natural to play with settings. In this case real intervals are preferable.
Besides, in my subjective view, fuzz is good for more mature cards, while for learning / young I prefer “no fuzz”. Well, I am aware what is the role of fuzz and that other users may prefer fuzz, and that is why we are talking about an option.
Actually I use Defuzz add-on, but the author was not keen on public sharing of this add-on. As far as I remember he forbade public sharing.
I second this suggestion. I see no reason why fuzz should be mandatory, and seeing cards in the same order and/or close together doesn’t necessarily negatively affect memorization or recall; however, the fuzz factor itself can negatively affect retention by causing difficult material to be scheduled later than it needs to be seen to be remembered.
There are many threads here and on Reddit about intervals changing in negative and unexpected ways; the V3 scheduler is probably behind some of that but the fuzz factor is undoubtedly also a factor. I’ve been a user since Anki version 1, and I’ve wasted hours trying to learn, failing, and relearning cards since upgrading to Anki versions with V3 and fuzz.
and seeing cards in the same order and/or close together doesn’t necessarily negatively affect memorization or recall
Quite the opposite. Reviewing in the same order or close together means you’ll have better retention rate in Anki. But as those retrieval cues won’t be present in real-life, your retention might just be worse off outside Anki. So, fuzz actually makes retrieval harder by simulating the randomness that real-world retrieval often demands.
Please stop. The apparent selling of Anki features has gotten borderline cult-like on this forum. I know what the feature is supposed to do; I’ve read the documentation.