A number of people have said that "you really have to grade yourself", and I agree with that. That is, just because Skritter decides that you did or did not get a given character right (or so-so) does not mean you should necessarily accept its judgement if you don't agree.

In deciding how to grade myself, though, I often consult the "you last studied this..." message to determine what the consequences of clicking "so-so" or "got it" will be. As I understand it, "so-so" means that it will be scheduled for the same interval - so if you last studied it two days ago it will be up for review in another two days. And if you click "got it", it will come back after some time longer than that (and I don't know how long that is, but that's another topic). And if you click "forgot", it will come back much sooner.

So, the more I use Skritter, the more I am developing a feel for what I need. I often feel I have the most trouble as a character is moving from a repetition rate of a few days to a week or two. That is, I will start to feel like I've really got it and then it will go away for a week or two and come back and I will draw a complete blank. So, I've started trying to be much more strict in this range in particular and, if I don't feel like I got the character really right, I go with "so-so".

So here is my real question/request: I often get stuck on some character's tone and end up repeating it over and over because... who knows... some mental block. Then all of a sudden, it comes up for review and I have to *both* write it and do the tone and I realize I don't really know how to write it. And the problem is that the "you last reviewed this" info is for the tone, not for writing the character, if you are being asked to review both. I would really like the repeat info for both the tone and the character available so that I can grade them appropriately.

Sorry for the long post to get to a simple question; I'm also curious about whether other people adjust their grading based on the repeat interval; that is, choose your grade not in absolute terms (how well did you do), but also as much or more on when you want it to come back.

I try not to look at the repeat interval too much and just grade based on how well I know the writing.

I have a pattern which I am trying to break out of: I learn a character fairly well, then see it again and get some aspect wrong, but (since I think I know it) mark it as a 2 or 3. Then it comes back a while later and I make the same damn mistake. So now if I get any aspect at all wrong I am trying to remember to mark it as a 1 and then I'll hopefully remember to fix the problem next time it comes up.

James

I am a little gun-shy about marking too many as 1; I'm not sure how much that drops the repeat rate and when I am struggling with keeping up with my review list, I don't want to put too many extras in there that I have to do several more times to work them back up to where they were.

And yes, I know that practicing the same amount the same day is the best way to keep the review stack from getting too big, but my schedule just doesn't permit me to spend enough time each day. Or another way to look at it is, I need more practice than the minimum I can assure I will get every day.

I am trying to devote 20 mins skritter time, as usually that is 1/2 hour or a bit more, how much are you putting in?

I think it is probably less efficient for most people to be thinking that closely about their grading, so I'd prefer not to put all that info immediately available. We used to have it change depending on which prompt you were doing, but it was confusing. It complicates the interface to do it.

More info may be available later as part of an improved lookup menu that Scott's thought up, where it would show you everything on the current lookup menu, everything on these pages:
http://www.skritter.com/useritem?lang=zh&base=%E4%B8%80&vari=0 (that link might not work for you), and a few other things. But it would cover most of the screen instead of fitting inside the prompt.

On the subject of grading, I have my writing canvas on right side of screen and since most of my words are multi-character, I really hate having to reach with my pen over to the left hand side to hit a really tiny target to grade the whole word.

I rarely grade characters written successfully since it breaks my practice speed and flow to move my hand out of the writing square. Also, for words, generally it's not the individual characters that give me problems, but selecting the correct homonym for a given multi-char word, so I can't really grade it until after I have seen all characters in the word. Is there any space to add a word grading button near the writing canvas?

Which leads me to suggest another fun feature.

How about a homonym hell torture mode? It would really help me to be able to practice words sharing homonyms together. Either a dedicated mode, or perhaps a subtle loose reordering of the queue to group words sharing common homonyms together.

@walid, I can usually get an hour of time on the weekends, but am doing well to get half an hour (skritter time) most week days - and get zip some days. I'm way more variable than I know is ideal, but that's life.
@klutz14159 - you are a glutton for punishment! Yes, I would feel really good if I could pass that test, but homonym mode would kill me! I have a hard enough time some days convincing myself I am making progress at all. Sigh. But if it didn't kill me, it would probably make me stronger.

Don't have a homonym or homophone mode on the list for soon, but it's something you could manually do for those that give you trouble using cram lists, to try out. (Not that cram mode is working very well right now, although scratchpad mode is.)