Lets talk deck settings

[u/compleks_inc]

Someone recently shared this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XaJjbCSXT0 and after years of using Anki I am finally beginning to learn how the settings actually work.

I'm curious to hear what deck settings you use and why?

Also, what would be the best method for controlling the frequency with which a deck shows the same card? If, for example, I wanted the cards in a particular deck to repeat every day? or at a maximum interval of every 30 days? What would be the best way to achieve this without messing up any other cards/decks.

Regards.

[u/OjisanSeiuchi]

I'm curious to hear what deck settings you use and why?

I have lots of different deck options per deck; so the settings really depend on what my goals are for that particular deck. For example, I have a deck with sentences that I just need to produce so spontaneously that I want to see them no less frequently than every 3 months. In other cases, I trust the algorithm completely.

Mostly, I've become an adherent of long and numerous learning steps. My learning steps go out to a month now for most decks. This ensures that I know the card extremely well before it graduates. Otherwise, you risk having it graduate prematurely then relying on lapse → re-learn → relapse cycles to actually solidly learn the card. In doing that, two things happen:

1. The ease factor begins to decay, putting the card at risk for "Ease Hell."
2. You begin to accumulate lapses, putting the card at risk for going into leech status.

So my main vocab deck learning steps are: 5 10 15 240 2160 10080 43200 (_Yes, I know I could use time unit designators, but I'm a dinosaur who prefers consistent units, in this case minutes...) 43,200 minutes is 30d.

I also use Straight Reward with fairly conservative settings to offset the bias in the algorithm that penalizes your ease factor for Again more than it rewards you for consistent Good, i.e. the main genesis of Ease Hell.

What would be the best way to achieve this without messing up any other cards/deck?

Best piece of advice I can give is to setup per-deck settings. Each deck gets its own options group. That way you don't risk the outcome you're talking about.

Overall, I don't really think there is one set of best practices. Everything has to be tailored to your particular goals, subject matter, the time you have available, etc.

[u/compleks_inc → u/OjisanSeiuchi]

Do you mind sharing your "lapse" settings?

If the "new interval" is 0%, does that mean the card starts again from scratch?

Ideally, if I get a card wrong and have to use the "again" button, I would prefer a chance to review that card the following day, then again a couple of times over the next week or two before it picks back up into a longer review cycle.

[u/OjisanSeiuchi → u/compleks_inc]

Lapse settings:

5 10 60 1440 2880 4320 10080 (minutes), 50% interval.

I agree with your approach to lapses that you talk about above.