It seems that FSRS does not respect manually scheduled intervals.
For example:
Create a new card
Manually schedule it (Ctrl+Shift+D) to 190! (this will set the interval to 190 days)
Review it after 190 days
FSRS will show that the next review time is 2-4 days (or similar)
Is this a bug? Or an intended behaviour?
If it is an intended behaviour, how would one overcome it?
Expected outcome
I expect that the interval of 190 days would be recognised by FSRS. If I remember a fact after 190 days, it should not matter how I came to that point (e.g., naturally vs. manually).
At least these were my observations from using SuperMemo 18 and SuperMemo 2.
Videos
See the videos below . I have tested it multiple times with different methods; the outcome was the same:
Changing the date and time of my device
Using filtered decks
Grade the card and introduce it to the learning process naturally, and then manually reschedule it
Letās say I have memorised a chapter in a textbook.
Then, I add 100 cards.
When adding cards about a topic, I have already memorised the content. So, the first few natural steps are quite useless to me.
So, in SuperMemo 18 (and Ankiās SM2), I would execute a manual review and spread the content over a few days. This would save me 200 unnecessary natural reviews for today, and an unnecessary 100 reviews tomorrow!
But anyway, I think I have figured a (partial) way around it!
Create a new card
Grade it naturally
After the above, manually schedule it (Ctrl+Shift+D) to 190! (or whatever)
If you want to rate all the maps without looking at them, use Auto Advance.
If you really always remember these cards, FSRS can increase the initial stability up to 100 days during optimization.
The initial stability can be changed manually, then it is not recommended.
@Danika_Dakika Thank you for the link! I have worded my question quite badly, and hence none of this came up during my search !
If you want to rate all the maps without looking at them, use Auto Advance.
We have explored this option already. We would probably need to create a filtered deck with the cards of interest so as not to accidently run it on Review cards.
The initial stability can be changed manually, then it is not recommended.
Ah! I am guessing through manually changing the databaseā¦?
But the best thing you can do is to honestly evaluate your cards. And if your Pre-learning is as good as you think it is, then when optimizing FSRS, you will get large initial intervals.
I believe there was only one person who used āSet due dateā to equally distribute cards over a period of days. He couldāve done this using filtered decks, but that one change he suggested seems to be affecting a lot of people. If FSRS is to become the default scheduler, those changes should be reverted. I am hoping this is on Sherlockās To Do list.
(Actually, isnāt this workflow unfeasible using SM2?)
Let me explain what Keks is trying to say. If you consistently memorise your new cards outside of Anki, FSRS will recognise that the stability of your newly learnt cards are higher than, say a few days. Thus, if you can usually recall 90% of newly learnt material 10 days after you learned it, your initial intervals will be that much high.
The point to note here is that FSRS is already trying to save you from those āunnecessaryā initial reviews (except the initial learning steps which you can just set to 1m).
One more thing to note, is that there might be cards in your deck you donāt learn outside Anki. If this is the case, FSRS will have a hard time generalising for your cards. One trick might be to graduate such cards with the Good button whereas graduate the other type of cards with the Easy button. If Iām not wrong, this should give you lower intervals for one set of cards, and higher intervals for the other.
You can also use āIgnore reviews beforeā option if you have a lot of old reviews you donāt want FSRS to optimise with.
Thanks for this! I didnāt know about such workarounds.
I have been thinking about doing this (this is my workflow in SuperMemo 18 and SuperMemo 2). But, I was worried that this kind of behaviour would affect the way FSRS views my collection as a whole.