ZDT: Setting a minimum value for the Interval Filter (SRS)

[jbradfor]

One of the most annoying things to me in ZDT is that there is no minimum value the score can go when using the interval filter. [if you don't know what the interval filter is in ZDT, read over here.]

That is, by the defaults, every wrong answer lowers the score by 2, and each correct answer raises it by 1. Which in general makes sense. However, when I'm first learning a character, it is not too uncommon for me to get it wrong several (or many times!) before I consistently get it right. However, at that point the score is very low. Say I get it wrong 5 times, my score is now -10, and I need to get it right 10 time before the score is now 0 and SRS starts working.

So I get frustrated by seeing a character over and over again that I now know. And keeping myself not frustrated is my #1 goal.

So, to fix this I wrote a very simple script that modifies the user.script file to modify the stats count to keep the implied score above -1. Currently this is gawk based, so it's aimed more at linux and mac users, but if there is any demand for it from windows users I'll see what I can do.

Basically, unzip and copy these two files to the same directory that contains your user.script file, and run

tcsh min.sh

This will copy your existing user.script file (just in case my script messes it up! plus it's good to have a backup), and then make the changes. You should ensure that zdt is not running when you do this. [Note that the shell script is not required, the awk script does all the work, but the shell script is nice as it makes the backup.]

min.zip

[chrix]

AFAIK, anki takes this problem into account in its algorithm. Though I can't see the effect as if I fail a character it does look like it's demoted to a "fresh card" like status, but since the creator of anki said so it must be true ..