Options when subscribing to a deck with cards I am already studying

[system]

@shmuelsash raised an interesting point regarding concerns that users may have when subscribing to a deck that contains cards they have already been studying.

For example, when users are already using v11 and they want to upgrade using AnkiHub, the default behavior is that AnkiHub will update their cards. This may make some users nervous because cards they have been studying will be modified, possibly making the card unfamiliar in a way that effects their retention performance. Theoretically, the updates should be fine since the main idea of the card should not be changed. However, in practice, the card may feel significantly different and unfamiliar. In this case, the scheduling information for the card is not applicable anymore.

Potential solutions

When AnkiHub notices that a user has matching notes during the initial subscription process and those notes have scheduling data, give the user two options:

• Reset scheduling data for the matching notes
  • Cons: they may unnecessarily “start over,” and re-study information they have already memorized.
• Protect the matching notes so that the user can continue studying the old version of the note and AnkiHub doesn’t ever update it.
  • Cons:
    • they may continue studying outdated information

Concerns

• If the user is studying a large number of notes that AnkiHub will update, it won’t be feasible to decide what to do for every individual note.

Note that the issues related to migrating people from v11 should go away once people stop using v11. So this should theoretically only be a problem for another year or so, hopefully. This is important to keep in mind when it comes to deciding how much dev time to spend on this.

@shmuelsash, @Jacobrogers can you add any other thoughts that I may have missed?

[shmuelsash]

Perhaps if there’s a large number of cards we can put them into a filtered deck for them and have the option for them to test out what updates would look like and if they don’t like it, it would give them an option to revert them back

Idk if this is possible but if it is it would give the user an opportunity to make an informed decision

[TheAnKing]

I would put this as lower priority because my hope is people are starting with AnkiHub moving forward and not upgrading

[Jacobrogers]

From my experience, A lot of the “updated” cards have had a little note in the explanation saying something along the lines of “this was recently changed” or “this card had major changes for xyz”. I really appreciate when this detail is added to a card that historically has not been changed in a long time. If we could keep updating cards in this fashion I think it would be received positively by longtime users (pre v12) and new users.

[Ahmed7]

We will continue to do this for cards that receive a major/crucial change that might cause confusion for previous V11 users. We’re glad you like them!