Before the recent changes it was convenient to add words looked up at the MDGB dictionary into the queue. The option still exists and words are now added to a special MDGB list. So far so good. The problem is that previously, a word that was already added for study was of course not added to the queue. It seems that words are now put into the MDGB list even if they are already studied. This is much less useful. Is there any hope of adding only unstudied words to the MDBG list?

It's not really a problem though - Skritter won't make you study the word twice because it's in two different lists. When it goes to add it it realizes you already have the word studied and goes on to the next word.

It is a problem in the sense that I no longer have a concise list of the words that I still need to learn. The list now contains 'noise', i.e., words that I have already learned.

I agree with Swimming. Similarly, when adding stuff to the Miscellaneous list. Although I doubt that will happen as it goes against the current list design.

It seems we're now building lists of words for the sake of building lists of words.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that we are now building lists for the sake of building lists. I think that most of the changes made are clear improvements.

Let me clarify my point. There are two cases in which I would like to build lists. The first is when I am studying a textbook or some other material for which I have, or it is easy to produce, vocabulary list. In such a case I would like the list to contain all relevant words, even if I have already studied some of them.

The second case is when I am looking up random material and encounter words that I would like to study. (This happens, for example when I look up examples sentences and encounter other words that I think would be useful to know.) I would like to add such words to lists, such as "Miscellaneous" and "MDBG". It would be nice if such lists would only contain words that were not studied at the time they were added to the list.

Hi swimming, we agree with you that it's better to keep the level of information noise down (and we've gotten some email with the same concerns as well), so we're going to implement something to keep duplicates from being added to these lists as they are now. Because Nick and I are focused on fixing the Old Queue list to be more helpful than it already is, and fixing bugs that have popped up, we won't be able to implement this over the next few days. But on Tuesday the three of us are all going to get together and discuss all the design and implementation changes that have been suggested and figure out the details and then I'll spend next week making these changes. So you won't have to worry about this problem being around too much longer.

Thanks for your feedback and your patience! We're listening to everything and making plans accordingly :) You guys are truly the best at giving great feedback and so much of what we do is better for it.

Scott，thank you for your reply. As we all know, Rome wasn't built in a day...

While we are at it, here are two other relatively minor suggestions.

The list interface now contains a new "Word Actions" menu. Is it possible to add "Delete Words" to this menu? This could come in handy, especially for deleting words added by mistake.

Also, is it possible to add an additional "Edit this Section" button at the bottom of the section?

Thanks again!

I'll add your suggestions to the list of things to go over on Tuesday. I'm not sure about the Delete Words action though. My initial thoughts are that it would be fairly redundant, because for deleting words you can simply click 'Edit this Section' and delete from there, then save it, which is a similar amount of effort. Is there some way we could instead improve the existing system for deleting words from lists?

A "Delete words from list" action would be much more efficient than "simply clicking 'Edit this Section' and delete from there, and then save it". If the section is long, it takes a few seconds to enter the edit mode. The main problem, however, is that it then takes a while to re-find the word(s) and delete them, especially if the list is long.

Suppose, for example, that I am browsing a section and notice a word that I am already studying, or don't think is too useful, so I don't want to study it. (On the other hand, I don't want to go as far a banning it.) It would be useful to be able to check this word, use the "Delete" action and be done with it. That's at least how I feel...

That's a good point. It would be simpler to do it from the Word Actions popup than to go through the list editor in the scenario you describe. Still, I wish there were a way not to make it redundant, but that would probably involve an overhaul to the way you edit lists. We'll work on this.

I'm not sure if there is an easy way to do this, but rather than have just a generic MDBG queue it would be nice to have an option to decide which queue to put a word from MDBG in. Use cases (a) listening to a ChinesePod podcast, and picking up vocabulary that is neither in the main text nor in the supplementary vocabulary, but is in the discussion between the hosts (b) watching a movie/show over a longish period, looking up words and adding them as you work your way through a few more minutes. I often use MDBG to look up these words.

The reason to label words of course is that when you see them you often get a reminder of how they were used at the time you see them.

Hmm, that's a good point 阿福. One question I have though is... what would be the best way to control this? I see two ways:

1) Have a list setting, where one list is where you put all the MDBG words, until you change the setting.

2) Have it be controlled when the word is actually added, ie on the page that opens up when you add from MDBG.

Option 1 is good if that's all you're going to use the MDBG system for, but Option 2 gives you more flexibility to decide when you add it where it goes. But Option 2 takes more time because each time you add a word you have to give confirmation with a click of a button, which is tedious if you're doing a lot of adding from MDBG, or any other service.

A tough decision I think!

Easy decision - number 1!

Or do number 2, with a 'remember last choice' as default.

I vote for option 2. I think it would be useful to decide where each new words should go. Having MDBG as a default list, for which you just need to click one button to confirm would also be convenient.

I think either option is fine for the use cases. For option 2 I think it's essential that the extra overhead is at most one key or mouse click most of the time, so either "remember last" or having a list with a default checked is fine.

I also vote for a default setting which you can select and additional the option to put down words is specific lists.

I agree with 阿福 that when you are studying a specific topic/lesson you would like to add the relevant words in that list but for all the random words that i study... before were just in my queue, now they are spread all over the place, i have some in old queue, some in miscellaneous, some in MDBG and some in booklet mark. It becomes a little too complicated...

maybe an option to merge lists in an easy way?