FSRS 5: Effect of Presets on Retention

If I could theoretically give decks 1-10 all a single preset, I could. If I could split the decks into groups of 2, making 5 presets, I could. If you could make a preset for a group of 5, making 2 presets, I could. Multiply that if you have 100s of decks and then you get endless combinations.

Yes, in the sense that presets are assigned by the user to decks that are about the same context (e.g. subject, topic, etc.). In that sense, I could say they are not arbitrary. But the problem is that they still are with regards to:

  • how the user “defines” which decks belong to which topic. Different users have different interpretations. If I give user A and user B the same topics and tell them to group them in a certain way, they will most likely come out with different outcomes.
  • what gets to decide how many presets apply to how many decks? Different users would most probably come to different outcomes.

That is arbitrary.