Memrise Release Notes - 4 May 2017

Hey everyone,

Let me jump straight to it: we are releasing a new update that reverts the mem changes for all community created courses. You’ll again be able to see mems created by other Memrisers.

We thought this change would benefit the entire community, but what we’ve heard here is that other learner’s imaginations are an important part of making your own learning experience super-powerful.

We still believe there is an issue to address regarding mem moderation, and will continue to work on a long-term, scalable solution that works for both savvy learners who wince at nothing, educators around the world that need to look after their students, and everyone in between.

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Good news! I would have liked to see the reversion apply to Memrise created courses, too.

Put your thinking caps on people and let’s come up with some sensible, workable suggestions for a solution to the mem moderation issue.

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Lol!

(that is: keep the good work, dear fellow memrisers! thanks alan, arete, amanda, gateddanzig, etcetcetc)

( I cannot wait to see this one “update” reverted)

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@jellybreadracer

YOOHOOOOOOO!!!

Our work has NOT been in vain!!!

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Any chance that you can give us some kind of time scale, @BeaTrisy?

In the next couple of weeks, months???

Just would be nice to know if it is worth creating new mems in the meantime, with the idea of them being visible when the update is up and running.

Thanks, I hoped for this decision.
UPD. Yes I can see mems now. Life is good :slight_smile:

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Thank you!!! I was losing hope. Can’t believe I almost turned of my computer without seeing this :)))))))))))

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Thank you. Good to see you listening to the community.

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They’re accessible again right now, Amanda. Happy Memming!

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Just to echo what others are saying – thank you very much for being willing to walk this one back & look at other solutions to the moderation problem.

As a small note: I initially felt quite lost without the community mems, but then knuckled down these last few days and put a lot of effort into making my own… It was more time consuming but also very enjoyable – a little like taking a final exam where I had to apply everything I’d learned in the past six months about what kinds of mnemonics work well for me. Now that the community ones are back I’m looking forward to using them but also to creating more of my own – which I hope speaks overall to what a powerful, fun and creative idea mems are. They will always be the first thing I tell people about when I recommend Memrise.

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We can all benefit from yours being offered as alternatives.

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I’m so relieved to see this. Thank you so much for hearing us out, Memrise. I had been feeling so upset about this for the past week, and I was making serious plans to (very reluctantly) transition myself over to Anki. I’m happy to suspend those plans for now.

It would be extremely appreciated if you would consider giving us a heads up on changes like this in the future. It’s really not fun to have things like this sprung on you without any warning. As I said in my post on the other topic, I’ve poured many hours into hand-picking items from the wiki in order to import the mems, and it was extremely disheartening to just see a message on the forum casually saying that many months of work were going to be thrown away with no warning. With this update, I’m going to consider (cautiously) going back to business as usual, and I really hope I don’t come to regret it later.

I want to stress how important the community aspect is for me with Memrise. Mems, user-made courses, and the forum are all what really attracted me to Memrise in the first place. They’re what made me want to stay, and they’re what I’d been very, very upset about feeling I would have to abandon in the past week. You’ve got an amazing community here, Memrise, full of passionate, intelligent, helpful people. Please remember that.

As far as the mem moderation goes, what do you think about the ideas that have been proposed about a simple option that users can toggle? When an account’s first made, it can start at ‘off’, so that the user sees no mems, other than those that they’ve made themselves and those that have been approved by the staff. But for users who really benefit from the community mems, it’s as simple as going into the menu and turning it on. The fact of the matter is that you’re dealing with two very different demographics: adults who come here to learn on their own, and really aren’t bothered by the occasional swear word or lewd comment, and children who are being introduced to Memrise through their teachers/parents, and understandably shouldn’t be subjected to such things. I personally believe that offering options on the user’s end really is the best way to accommodate both groups. Another idea that’s been suggested is to just let users report offensive mems. It would take some extra manpower to go through the reports, but I would think that anyone who abuses the system, and makes a bunch of false reports, could be blocked easily enough.

In any case, thank you again for giving us the mems back. It really does make all the difference to me on whether or not I feel I can use Memrise for my learning. :slight_smile:

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we are releasing a new update that reverts the mem changes for all community created courses. You’ll again be able to see mems created by other Memrisers.

My thanks too @BeaTrisy.

A quick question, I have read that only 7 mems are shown. Will that still apply?
The reason I mention this is that several recent ones may not be as good as old ones which have been “liked”.

My suggestions would be to show all liked ones and up to say 7 new ones.
Also show all those created by course Creators and Contributors.

What do you think team? Would this be too difficult to programme?

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Thanks a lot.
And again THANK YOU.

:tada:
Now I am again at full learning speed.

Thank you @TinyCaterpillar for saying this – You really summed up what I wanted to say as well as my still existing worry about the future. I don’t want to go to using anki and want to stay here – I hope my efforts to improve my courses will not be in vain.

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BEST NEWS EVER!!!

:grin:

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I am so happy that our work paid off, @Hydroptere!

My faith in the human race is restored.

I didn’t realize quite how depressed this decision had made me.

But now I am happy again :slight_smile:

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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

So happy memrise made the right decision. Ignoring this would have been a sign of some unpleasant writing on the wall.

When you are learning a new alphabet or learning the difference between almost identical bones in the foot and hand you are absolutely lost without creative mems, and people have already made wonderful clever ones to help you. Often in beautiful technicolor! I hadn’t thought about it before but just today I was noticing how many answers I was getting thanks to community mems I remembered… mems I hadn’t even liked and hadn’t made any effort to commit to memory!!!

And over the last few days I kept thinking “I should do X for my course… wait… what’s the point, who knows what will disappear without warning next”

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I’m glad you have seen the new announcement. I felt so bad for you and all the work you had put into the community-created Swedish courses here.

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A lot of websites, especially ones where you upload art, allow you to tick a box that says “contains explicit content” for each image or text you upload.

All explicit content is turned off by default, and you can turn it on the ability to view them by ticking another box. I think the vast majority of people who are sharing adult mems are doing so because it really does help them remember, they have no intention of upsetting anyone.
Along with a “flag as inappropriate” button the problem would be solved.

I’m not a programmer so I don’t know if these are huge and complicated fixes or quick and simple ones I’m afraid.

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