Thanks for writing up!
It’s not like we could go in there and make demands like a negotiation. We were there to state the case in person and show how keen some of their long term users can be so even if nothing else they know there are some users who are willing to pay for a particular thing, so if nothing comes of it now, we might have planted a seed.
Anyway the ball is in their court now, they have heard the arguments and the strength of feeling.
Don’t worry I wasn’t expecting anything to change like you said they can’t change things one week before Decks is launched.I respect people who went to the meeting.
The timer make it like a race you should find the word within a certain amount of time.I can’t see the benefit of the timer.The functionality should at least not give the response after the timer end.
That’s why I used the word concrete.Thanks for representing the users in the meaning.
I just read the original blog post and saw this: “Decks will only be available as a mobile-friendly website.” Does this mean I need a phone to use it? No more desktop access? I have no cell phone so that would make most of the courses I am learning unavailable. I’m hoping the word “only” was supposed to be “also”!
No it mean the website will adapt to the screen size of tablets and smartphone but it doesn’t affect the desktop version.That’s called the responsive web design if you want to know more about it.
Whew! Thanks for the quick reply, and I am happy to hear that news.
No, it just means that the website will visually adapt to make it usable for mobile devices.
??? I don’t understand this… you do not want to know the answer? ok…
That is your opinion. My opinion is different. I don’t find 30-45 secs a race; I hope that they did not take ouit the timer…
Re: timer - this was discussed yesterday evening with Memrise and we asked for it to be made an option you can turn off if you want on Decks.
Terrible, tone-deaf update. You should be embracing your community instead of constantly taking it for granted. Do you know how many language learning apps would literally kill to have a community as dedicated and passionate as this one? It’s an incredibly rare and valuable asset for ANY app but you give it no value whatsoever. You guys could have genuinely been the Facebook of language learning by now. It really blows my mind.
With this update, all of my favourite courses will be rendered utterly unusable. I do not have nor do I ever plan on having mobile internet. With no offline capability, I simple cannot use your service any longer. So disappointed.
Looks like my only option will be to transfer all the courses over to a flashcard app like anki and use that instead.
I urge you to listen to your community and reconsider this horrendous update.
Thanks to @scmelville for the excellent summary and all the passionate users and to @edcooke and @kevin5284 & all the other Memrise staff who attended.
For technical reasons i.e. adding new functionality for official Memrise courses often breaks functionality for community courses, Decks is Happening
What was discussed was the format that Decks by Memrise will take.
@tommcb raised the excellent point that schools and other educational facilities could be a great additional revenue source for Decks by Memrise paying for custom courses (to meet syllabus requirements). I suggest hiring a great education salesperson.
One of the things that @edcooke was surprised by, was that the community were unhappy that Decks was initially proposed to be completely free. As has been expressed elsewhere on this thread, users are concerned about the long term viability of a free website, with many keen to financially support community courses.
In summary what many of us would like Decks by Memrise to have is:
an app
an offline mode
course reviews/ ratings
a better course search facility
a way for us to offer financial support
Thank you for defending our position! I am very grateful for your effort!!
Thanks for the meeting report. I really appreciate the time you and other forum members took to attend this and voice the concerns we all have. I also give memrise significant credit for being open to a meeting of this type and for Ed, Kevin, and other memrise team members for devoting their time after working hours to go into what at the outset probably seemed like a hostile environment and have a substantive discussion.
Obviously I am still baffled and upset about their choices regarding their vibrant community course ecosystem. As someone else mentioned, other companies would kill to have this gem of a resource. @Senior_Tradesmen57 gives a great list of the couple points of most concern to me, and I am really hoping Memrise puts some effort into addressing these.
I’m furiously downloading current courses and possible ones I may want to do in the medium term future to Anki, but while Anki is powerful and configurable and not subject to corporate whims, I’d just really rather spend my time learning with the memrise app on courses I care about rather than getting up the steep learning curve on Anki. And while the points and gimmicks and modern interface on Memrise shouldn’t matter that much at a basic level, I am sort of used to them and like them. And my kids (also paying members) really like them, even when doing english vocab lists their mom coursified for them.
It was a great meeting, really good to be able to exchange ideas in an open and friendly context, so thank you to @edcooke and @kevin5284 and the other Memrise staff for hosting, and thanks for everyone who attended. Really felt welcomed and listened to.
This statement really does fascinate me as it should be clear that any average intelligent person would expect that the development and continuous support of a complex/comprehensive application simply costs money!
The reverse conclusion is quite simple: I want to use something that is being maintained, fixed, enhanced, you name it.
The logical consequence is equally simple: I’m more than willing to spend money on something alike.
Frankly spoken: spending money on an app or a service puts me - as a paying customer - in a situation where I can actually expect certain things to happen, or demand that problems are being fixed.
All this is pretty much out of the question for “free” apps (even if they refinance themselves by means of advertisements).
Consequently, users (me included) are afraid of a free service that would just sideline a product (Memrise “official”) and could well be reduced to a niche existence.
This is something I raised yesterday as well - I have tried to get to grips with Anki and failed - as a learner, the usability of Memrise (flaws and all) with community courses means you can just get on with the activity we’re interested in without wrestling with Anki (I know other people like it though).
I personally have found Quizlet very easy to use but would obviously prefer to keep the current Memrise ecosystem.
Rest assured Olaf - a long period of time was spent in the meeting making this absolutely crystal clear!
Same here! FWIW, I’ve searched high and low for an alternative. The only one I’ve found so far that …
… would be Memorion. Do a quick search for it, there’s a few video tutorials and informative content. It’s far from being the same as Memrise.
Also, Volker (who seems to be the author) has posted about it here.
Again, I’d definitely prefer to stick with Memrise - I love the community which is a part that is not to be underestimated either.
Thanks Olaf, I’ll check that out