Re: [Memaid-users] Grade's for vocabulary learing and Categories

[David C. <ne...@ci...>]

On Sunday 30 of November 2003 19:13, Andreas Grau wrote:

> > I am not sure if I get you here, but I definitely don't agree with last
> > sentence. You shouldn't have to "enforce" anything.
> > It's MemAid role to guess how difficult every item is and schedule
> > accordingly!
>
> I agree that we disagree. Our main difference is that you are talking
> about difficulty, and I am *also* talking about importance.

I agree about importance.
But importance is highly related to retention rate.
(retention rate - percent of things you remember).
In fact, for important items you care about high retention rate.

As I said, I would like to see "aimed retention rate" option for every 
category (when categories will be implemented.)
Higher the 'aimed retention rate', more frequent MemAid will schedule 
repetitions.
(so you could set higher retention rate for something that is important for 
you. Retention and importance is almost like synonyms here.)

I do want to put all work, as much as possible, to ANN.
And I don't want to think "oh, I need to do some more repetitions from this 
category now". I prefer to think that ANN worries about such things. :)
If I really need to do some more repetitions from particular category - it's 
ANN-MemAid who should tell me about that - simple schedule these repetitions.


> During a (hopefully) normal and structured learning process, memaid
> helps a lot. No dissent here.
>
> But what, if I absolutely and unconditionally need some knowledge
> tomorrow?

I understand.
But MemAid simply won't help much here. Optimum spacing of repetitions shows 
its strength over longer periods.
If one needs to learn (cram) for an exam tomorrow, then the only thing in 
MemAid that would be helpful is "active recalls". The main advantage (ANN and 
optimum repetitions) is simply lost.

In other words: although I admit sometimes there is a need to cram something, 
it will never be main MemAid aim to be such cram tool.
But categories and "Forced repetitions mode" can help in such cramming.


> Ok, tomorrow might be a bit too exagerated. Let's say in a
> month's time I have an exam on some stuff. How to make sure, exams'
> contents will be covered by memaid. Again, the problems lies partially
> in difficulty. but mainly in importance. I would happily forget some
> other items (scheduled for repetition) if I would recall the items at
> hand for the exam.

Yeah. Here categories could be helpful.


> > Especially new code I am working on - among other things it will have a
> > smart "Finall Drill" feature that will work automagically, and there will
> > be no normal "Finall Drill" - everything should be automated and it is
> > MemAid 'who' should worry about enforcing and proper scheduling
> > repetitions, not human.
>
> Agree here. But still then: Man overrides Machine - Assimov's 2nd law of
> robots? - not sure, will have to learn again. Sigh. ;-)

Hehe. :)
I used a wrong word. Obviously MemAid will never "enforce" anything. :)
Hmm. "suggest", or just "schedule", sounds much better. :)


> I am not sure I understand this correctly. Is "higher retention rate"
> synonymus to "prefered item to learn, overriding other items in
> priority, normally scheduled for today" ?

More or less.
Well, in SuperMemo software (something like MemAid, but doesn't use ANN) in 
options you can find "retention rate". By default is set to 90%, so SuperMemo 
algorithm tries to scheduled items in a way that 10% of items on next 
repetition will be forgotten.
This is, more or less, optimal.
(100% would be achieved if one would learn endlessly with SuperMemo, which is 
obviously crazy and impossible. MemAid/SuperMemo aim is to have the most 
optimal knowledge_acquisition/time_spend_for_learning ratio.)

To put it more simply: MemAid will schedule more frequent repetitions of items 
that have higher "aimed retention rate". Which means that these items (with 
higher "retention rate") are more important for user and user is willing to 
pay higher price(more time spend on them) for keeping them in memory (as a 
result more of them user will remember)


> Sorry to hear about your financial distress. Are you saying that you are
> about to create a new "commercial" branch of memaid to generate you some
> income?

This is not certain, but... yes, I have such plans...

> If so, where's the problem?

Problems is... well, for example in free software world some people consider 
writting commercial software a crime. :)
Sounds funny, but it's true. Richard Stallman is for many people a guru, and 
it's his opinion.
The other problem is how I feel about it.
I have always aimed that MemAid code would be totaly free and developed by 
many people, so many people as possible would benefit from it... (but now I 
see that lack of marketing and money doesn't help in promoting a product 
among people, and being "open" for a project doesn't give any warranty about 
development by others people.) 

And finally I don't know how some people will react here.
But I would like to focus on commercial version for Windows, and I would like 
to still support and develop free/Open version.
But it's still very vague - I don't know how everything will be.

> I would definitely keep my fingers
> crossed for you. Speaking for myself, I feel you have already given
> much, so maybe it's time to think of yourself. Best of luck!

Thank you..!

-- 
David Calinski
http://neodave.civ.pl