Man, I gotta say, I was not expecting this much disagreement on this proposal of all things.
Users don’t like long intervals → we make intervals shorter by default. That’s it, problem solved. Literally how are there 20 comments with little to no consensus?
Actually, according to my poll, more people voted for 90% DR than for other default DR. So if anything, the consensus is the opposite of what would solve the problem.
Any proposal that alters a fundamental part of a scheduling algorithm should expect disagreement as you’d need solid proof on why your stand makes sense to justify it.
Again, what users? A couple of Reddit threads do not constitute any portion of users.
That’s because those are the available options. Also why is it when people vote against your preference it is bad but when it’s a couple of Reddit threads it’s users?
If I showed you 100 posts where users complain about intervals being too long, would you change your mind? What about 200?
What’s the number that would make you say “Ok, yeah, that’s too many to be a coincidence”? If that number is <200, I can show you that many. I can show around 150, give or take since some have been deleted.
Since it is your case, you should be the one presenting the number of complaints and why it is significant. Personally, 100, 200 or even 1,000 is not enough to make the case for it, Anki has over 2 million users as of four years ago, this is really not the problem you think it is, it is a very minor number of people who face it who can just turn up their DR for themselves and be done with it.
Sure, but we can’t ask all Anki users, so if that’s how much evidence you want, there is nobody on this planet, not even Dae, who could show you that much.
who can just turn up their DR for themselves and be done with it.
A lot of users also don’t understand the relationship between DR and interval lengths, and think that long intervals are an inherent part of FSRS. Which is why I’m really hoping for this: Desired Retention UI Overhaul - #33 by Expertium
I think you are vastly underestimating three things:
I think that 50% are users who have to deal with “too many reviews” which is something we see a lot IMO.
I’m personally open to making Anki easier-than-duolingo no-brainer app, but is this helpful net-net?
I don’t think tweaking the algorithm is the right solution here. Recently, I onboarded someone completely new to Anki, but I had to explain why Anki was better than other flashcard apps despite its relatively clunky UI. The key was obviously FSRS.
But FSRS was disabled by default, and there wasn’t any clear way from the app to inform them about FSRS. There was a lack of in-app onboarding.
If Anki’s strongest point is algorithmic superiority, then the app should make that clear to the user. If users aren’t convinced FSRS is worth using, you have to show them—visually, and in plain language—why it matters. Without transparency and context, most people don’t know why it’s better.
This isn’t just a UX thing—it’s well supported in human-computer interaction research: transparency, perceived control, and trust all influence whether people continue using a system, especially when it’s algorithmic or opaque.
For example, the deck browser and Congratulations screen could easily show a brief statistical recap—some small, digestible evidence that things are working. Right now, even basic visual feedback is missing. That makes it harder to build trust or form an intuition around the system.
If we believe the algorithm is the core advantage, we should treat it as something to be communicated, not just hidden under the hood.
[1] Relevant research and sources:
Candidly – your proposal just doesn’t seem like a good fit for the issue you’re claiming you want to solve. This is really just a user-education problem.
Moving from 90% to 95% is a much bigger jump that we would ordinarily suggest for any individual user asking for help about their intervals being too long. So why would it be the better default overall for everyone?
You haven’t offered any reasons related to learning why 95% is actually better. Because the icing on the cake for me is what @Keks brought up – a shift to 95% default DR would negate most of the efficiency benefits that FSRS was created to provide. We’d see intervals get cut in half, and workloads would double.
Users complain about all sorts of things that aren’t really problems. If we try to change Anki to appease them and stop those complaints, but we ruin what’s great about Anki and FSRS in the process, what was the point of the years of work that have gone into creating FSRS?
I think there is no problem with increasing the default desired retention rate, but your reason is strange.
Increasing the learning workload to reduce the number of complaints or to increase the number of Anki users has nothing to do with learning, both are Anki management or customer support issues.
If there is still room for new users to increase their workload to make their learning more efficient, I think it is a good idea. In short 90% may be too easy, the average Anki user should be able to get higher grades because they can withstand the workload.
Again with the quantification without evidence.
Even if a lot of users really have that issue, it’s an education issue and increasing the DR would just end up increasing the workloads.
Until we see a proper large enough survey about the topic after we do a round of education about FSRS, then and only then can we say we are underestimating or overestimating things, otherwise these are just assumptions.
How are you so sure it is 50%? Who is the we in ?
we see it a lot
As @Danika_Dakika said, we can not just allow any complain by 3 to 10 people out of millions to be a feature just to stop them from complaining, that’s not a good road to take in software development.
I could do a survey on r/Anki, r/medicalschoolanki, r/AnkiMCAT, etc., but I don’t think I’d get more than a 100-200 responses. And you’ll probably say that the sample size is too small and that Reddit users are different from average Anki users.
If you want a survey within Anki itself, organized by devs, we both know that is not going to happen. An in-app survey didn’t happen even once in Anki’s history.
Imagine a world where Anki always had 95% default DR and right now I’m arguing in favor of decreasing it to 90%, and you say the same things about lack of evidence, about how feedback from a 100-150 dissatisfied users is not enough, and a need for a large-scale survey. Do you see the problem? Regardless of what DR is currently the default and what DR I’m proposing, nobody can give you the amount of evidence you want.
It doesn’t matter what DR values we are talking about, you have raised the bar for evidence so high that nobody can possibly convince you to change your mind. Dae and other devs agreeing to conduct an in-app survey would be nothing short of a miracle.
(I really wish forums had downvotes/dislikes)
Because Anki is not that kind of application, user data is opt-in not opt-out and personally I’d like it to stay that way.
Except FSRS has the default for a reason. Assuming the 90% was randomly chosen is dismissive.
Moreover, there are problems with your argument
You are appealing to futility by saying “nobody can give you the amount of evidence you want”, a survey with a proper sample is in general possible, it is just not doable with the way Anki treats its users in terms of privacy and non-invasive metrics and data collection.
You are throwing vague numbers with the “100-150” which does not exist, they are at best 10s from the threads you mentioned previously.
You are arguing that because perfect evidence is impossible to obtain, the proposed change should be accepted based on limited anecdotal evidence, which is a logical fallacy that avoids addressing the core question of what would constitute sufficient evidence for a change.
Why? I hope you don’t want to just downvote me and those of my opinion instead of arguing your points.. I find the remark rather misplaced.
That’s actually an interesting point.
@Expertium
Since you’re part of the FSRS team, why had DR=.9 been chosen in the past?
The context was expertium saying 50% should be complaining about “too short ivls”. I’m saying that 50% would instead be complaining “we get too many reviews”.
Active members? Don’t think others would disagree.
90% has been a thing from the SM-2 days. It’s seen as the sweet spot and it is kinda near the knowledge/workload sweet spot (which is 86/87% I think?).
@expertium Do you know how is this meta changing with FSRS-6?
Alright, here.
IDs of posts where people say that intervals are too long, 135 in total:
[‘1jomz1j’, ‘1iuvbzc’, ‘1gte7b9’, ‘1jrm1lf’, ‘1jozch5’, ‘1jo6pxj’, ‘1dw5h15’, ‘1jplspl’, ‘1ix2ivw’, ‘1ivxe0y’, ‘1itsks2’, ‘1isgor2’, ‘1is7zgq’, ‘1irpn3t’, ‘1iqo83h’, ‘1iomxc6’, ‘1imoz2a’, ‘1ilgkcn’, ‘1ikvkar’, ‘1ikmvk5’, ‘1ihoyml’, ‘1ih2hbq’, ‘1igepse’, ‘1icsat7’, ‘1ic52tz’, ‘1ibi27j’, ‘1i9bb0m’, ‘1i8lzcx’, ‘1jnlkvz’, ‘1i645io’, ‘1i4qxjz’, ‘1i1tg3m’, ‘1hyuu2u’, ‘1huyj66’, ‘1hu7yvq’, ‘1jk0q3l’, ‘1hoaa32’, ‘1ho6u7n’, ‘1hlmnr6’, ‘1hkpfq1’, ‘1hjpdp0’, ‘1hetund’, ‘1hdo4yk’, ‘1dqibzm’, ‘1hdjxf1’, ‘1h9tgiw’, ‘1jfx8te’, ‘1jf7z22’, ‘18isv0j’, ‘17rtir4’, ‘19cu37p’, ‘1gvaipr’, ‘1gurdxt’, ‘1f0zc6f’, ‘1ewssf8’, ‘1ei9rup’, ‘1jd3oq8’, ‘1f4dd3f’, ‘1bjzf0p’, ‘19cngcb’, ‘1j9tnnj’, ‘1jackkm’, ‘1j7a23m’, ‘1j7t0cz’, ‘192b6na’, ‘1jc60ih’, ‘1gs6oqw’, ‘1awhos4’, ‘18t3zab’, ‘18cg00x’, ‘1czjckl’, ‘194u9ap’, ‘189ulqv’, ‘18jkhv8’, ‘18wna9c’, ‘18xk1hj’, ‘17t64rb’, ‘17ccmhv’, ‘17llsrc’, ‘191uian’, ‘1gpnwfv’, ‘1glywjs’, ‘1gkort1’, ‘1gjfn3d’, ‘1ghocix’, ‘1910uy4’, ‘18v94cu’, ‘18c2kgg’, ‘18a367v’, ‘174i9ty’, ‘15vomx5’, ‘180xn4n’, ‘18hdlz2’, ‘1aoym8q’, ‘1gdzk1l’, ‘1gbfx6t’, ‘1g6o45b’, ‘1g454ra’, ‘1g3lyt4’, ‘1fyglm6’, ‘192e9x8’, ‘180b8v7’, ‘1fi0e51’, ‘1ffdfv3’, ‘1fcdc9o’, ‘1fbvfrh’, ‘1fbkolk’, ‘1fac1zp’, ‘1f8kzce’, ‘1ex7ytb’, ‘1ev0xim’, ‘1evw2kn’, ‘1eut3eb’, ‘1eo9wjp’, ‘1drf9t0’, ‘1f22n2v’, ‘1elmogv’, ‘1cn51s2’, ‘1de8wrz’, ‘1dfmpy4’, ‘1dw9oc2’, ‘1e0nbkm’, ‘1e603ar’, ‘1c8v1tt’, ‘1c90n7s’, ‘1co9whl’, ‘1bton2h’, ‘1bfs6bw’, ‘1aigs9l’, ‘1aj0vvx’, ‘1btfjdu’, ‘1awhn60’, ‘1b1im0g’, ‘1b8unar’, ‘1jtvhua’]
IDs of posts where people say that intervals are too short, 6 in total:
[‘1iml3bd’, ‘1iizyj3’, ‘1fkiy60’, ‘1g24ozv’, ‘1ikk889’, ‘1fjzd1a’]
135 vs 6 very clearly shows that users are more concerned about intervals being too long than about them being too short.
Note that some posts were deleted, so I didn’t include those. I also didn’t count crossposts - same post on 2 or more subreddits - but that doesn’t really change the final numbers much anyway.
EDIT: 135 instead of 134, just added a fresh one, posted <hour ago.
I just wanted the clarity.
Alright, thank you for gathering this sample
Even within this there are people who complain about long intervals even with a high DR, this is a sample of a few people but this leads me to think that maybe people are just untrusting of long intervals? which speaks more to a mis-understanding of FSRS and Anki in general as an exam prep tool rather than a long-term memory tool. We can not generalize this to all people at this point and rather guide people to increasing their DR or just trusting the algorithm and not thinking too much about the intervals.
‘1iuvbzc’ says
My desired retention is already extremely high (98%) with my true retention being 99%
‘1jozch5’ says
My retention rate is 0.93.
I only read a few of these replies so there could very well be more..
For the aspect of optimization, changing default desired retention to a lower value is better because then we can collect more diverse data point.
Well, if someone thinks the intervals are too long at DR=93% or DR=98%, they definitely will think that the intervals are too long at DR=90%, since they will be objectively longer. That’s how DR and FSRS work, lower DR = longer intervals.
I do not disagree with this, if they think it is long at .93 or .98 they’ll think it is long at .90 too.
Can you perhaps consider that such a thing is normal and is does not warrant changing the default for everyone? I’ll reiterate my point that maybe people are just not used to or comfortable with long intervals.
For example if a student sees that they’ll only see the card in 10 days they’ll hit again or complain about the long intervals when in reality it is fine and they’ll recall the card with a probability of .90 in 10 days.
I now think increasing the interval can result in the following problems
If people want to configure Anki to have short intervals of a couple of days always, they are free to do so but as @Keks it defeats the purpose of FSRS and in general spaced repetition, maybe those people are just students who want to repeat things every couple of days for an exam and that’s it. Long term recall requires long intervals eventually, if we cull those intervals every time a group of people complain we might as well quit spaced repetition.
Firstly, thank you for FSRS, it is an amazing scheduler.
Secondly it is interesting that you propose lowering the DR -are you thinking .85 or lower?- would lead to more diverse data points. Whether that is better for long term recall remains to be seen, I want to look at more rigorous simulations of reviews at some point in the future.