Leech idea (card-specific tag)

[jcznk]

As of now, if you reach the leech threshold of a card, a generic “Leech” tag is added to the whole note.
What if a card-specific tag was added instead? Anki could assign a number to each card of a note and tag accordingly.
E.g. if you reach the leech threshold for cloze number 6, the tag “Leech_6/Leech::6” would be added

This would give a more precise information and would make it easier to target each card separately
(you could e.g. write an addon that removes the “Leech” tag after you answer the leeched card correctly a certain number of times; now it can’t be done since there could be more than 1 leeched card per note)

[abdo]

I think this is a good idea for an add-on. Anki provides the card_did_leech hook, which can be used for that.

[dae]

One alternative would be to allow the user to assign a specific flag on leech. But in the mean time, by searching for a lapse threshold when searching for the leech tag, you can narrow the matches down to cards that have crossed the leech threshold. The tag is intended as a reminder that you need to process the card (delete it, modify it, invest time in memorizing it), and the assumption is that you’ll remove the tag once you’ve done so.

[davidcortez]

For me, associating the leech with a flag would be better. I usually have multiple clozes per note, so the leech as tag feature is not useful right now, as it’s difficult to spot which card is the one that requires attention.

[cqg]

@davidcortez

I usually have multiple clozes per note, so the leech as tag feature is not useful right now, as it’s difficult to spot which card is the one that requires attention.

Yes, I agree: the leech feature doesn’t work well with cloze cards:

Option to flag notes and mark / tag cards

Another example to illustrate why we need the ability to flag/tag notes AND cards: actually, if you have several cards made from a single cloze note: Some {{c1::days}} I feel like a {{c2::leprechaun}} at the end {{c3:n other days}} I feel like the one in search for the {{c4::gold}} at the beginning. …and card 1 gets automatically tagged as a leech, all four cards from that note will get tagged as leeches no matter how easy they actually are, which in my opinion is neither expected nor des…

That’s exactly why I stopped using this feature and started using prop:lapses>n as a search string in the browser to identify (and then delete, rework or flag) cards that have been forgotten n times

It’s not automatic, but it allows finer control than the leeches feature and it works great with cloze cards.

[whatchu]

I have a specific search "tag:leech" AND "prop:lapses>7" and move leeched cards to a different deck and remove leech tag manually from time to time

The flag thing would do, since they are per card instead of note

The leech tag is not very useful in regular 2 sided notes, but its specially useless in clozed notes

[davidcortez]

I found that the addon Mortician does the flagging of failing cards, according to rules defined by the user. But, I think it only works for reviews on the desktop.

@whatchu

The leech tag is not very useful in regular 2 sided notes, but its specially useless in clozed notes

Why do you say they are not very useful in regular 2 sided notes?

[whatchu]

@davidcortez

I found that the addon Mortician does the flagging of failing cards, according to rules defined by the user. But, I think it only works for reviews on the desktop.

That is indeed pretty handy, but only works on the desktop as you said

@davidcortez

@whatchu

The leech tag is not very useful in regular 2 sided notes, but its specially useless in clozed notes

Why do you say they are not very useful in regular 2 sided notes?

I have to run my search to do it manually. Its not perfect, but it works

With 2 sided you cant accurately tell which one triggered the taggig. Its worse when theres more than 2 as is the case with clozed notes

[davidcortez]

@whatchu

With 2 sided you cant accurately tell which one triggered the taggig.

I see, now. I don’t use Reverse, so I did not notice that problem.

[sprvlcn]

Since you’ve now written the More Flags add-on (forum page is here), any thoughts about making a colorless leech flag a standard thing?

Colorless because is:suspended cards already have a color which we wouldn’t want to override, and because traditional note-level tags don’t require you to set a color, or even let you do so.

Maybe the deck options Lapses section could have an option to set card-level “leech” status via this new flag instead of at note level via tags.

Using note-level leech tags seems like a mistake that is now set in stone.

[sprvlcn]

Over time I’ve occasionally changed the leech threshold up and down, so searching for prop:lapses>N as a proxy for a card-level leech tag is an imperfect solution.

Also, there are some uncommon cases where more than one card of a note turns into a leech. So then you shouldn’t remove the tag when unsuspending a leech card unless you’re certain that there was only that one leech card for that note, and no others.

Or you might simply forget to remove the tag when you unsuspend a leech card.

I just wrote a simple add-on for my own use to detect and display Notes which are tagged “leech” but have no suspended cards, and was surprised to find about three dozen notes where I had unsuspended a leech card but hadn’t remembered to remove the tag.

[abdo]

@sprvlcn

any thoughts about making a colorless leech flag a standard thing?

Adding more flags to vanilla Anki is more work than it seems because of the way flags are currently implemented and stored in the DB.

The add-on stores custom flags in a way that has fewer limitations.