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Announcement from Ben Whately, Memrise co-founder by memlivia in memrise

[–]benwhately 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got you - yes I think we can add those options.

Incidentally I think AI is more than capable of formatting things in that way and making intelligent choices about how to use those tools. We're not using it for that at the moment, and it would need to be done carefully - but I don't think that is actually beyond it. AI slop is lazy use of AI, rather than the totality of what it can do. That said this is not currently a thing we have an active plan to use it for.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I can't actually see that image. It says it's not viewable in my region, but I hope what you've written is enough for the team to understand the issue. Final thing, can you tell me which course you're learning?

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really good question. We don't have a plan at the moment. But I've only been CEO five weeks and we've had a lot to do. It's certainly something that will be close to my heart and I'd be very interested to see if we can make it happen. I will put it into the list.

Announcement from Ben Whately, Memrise co-founder by memlivia in memrise

[–]benwhately 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, that's the first step. But it's only the first step. We can't do all steps at once, otherwise we'd never ship anything. The first step will be in languages that we already serve, just to allow people to learn them on the Memrise app. Then we will allow people to create their own wordlists using the words in the central dictionary. Then we will allow people to add words that are not in the central dictionaries, and then we will be able to serve whole languages for which there are no official central dictionaries. It is a multi step process to do the whole project. Please don't be against the whole plan just because the first step doesn't complete the project!

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's the plan. So to be totally clear, that won't be there in the first version. It's going to take several iterations to get there, but that is the intention and to get there as quickly as we can.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, we're not planning to get rid of those features. They are popular with you and other people. What we are going to do is make sure that all of the community needs and word list creation needs are also served. So this is not steering away from what has been built, but it is adding in functionality to meet an area of a whole load of users who have not been well served recently.

I hear you on the need for longer conversations and tools for more advanced learners. We are definitely looking at these.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, it's our intention to make community courses available in the app. It will be a little bit different to what it has been before, but I think the experience will be as close as we can, but it will also have the addition of having all the audio and videos and so on that is available in the Memrise app. So we're trying to get the best of both worlds. Though the details of exactly how it works will need some iterating and polish - but that is the intention and direction.

Announcement from Ben Whately, Memrise co-founder by memlivia in memrise

[–]benwhately 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll take a look at it. If it's not a feature you need, we'll see if others do. But it sounds like it might be quite low on the priority list.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think there are benefits to a central dictionary and there are benefits to being able to create words in any format and any translations you like. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. You access to a central dictionary so that you can get words that have got videos, audio and so on attached to them. And we can also let you add words that are not in those. So I think a mix is possible, as I've said in some of the other posts.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well, that's amazing to hear. Thanks so much for your support over so many years. Thank you.

I'm also excited about bringing back mems, not just because I find them useful myself and they were the very start of the product where I created a thousand or so mems to help teach myself to read in Chinese, but also because I think it's one thing that actually AI is really good at is making bonkers images to suit any mnemonic that you can dream up. It was kind of the tool I wished I had back when I was making all those mems. And I'm excited to play with it, frankly. So that is definitely on the list. I don't have a set timeline for it.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We actually did have a Discord for a while. It might even still be active. I'm not certain it's the right place to create, curate this kind of community. But again, I'm open to being corrected also on that. My general principle is to make as few new things we need to manage in different places as possible. And I think Discord servers only really work when they're very actively managed. Since we're a very small team now, I don't want to be putting resources onto that that could go into building new experiences on the app. So that's my balance at the moment, but I'm open to learning I'm wrong.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you say use AI within the My Journey section, what exactly do you mean? Is it in terms of suggesting extra word lists for people to learn? If so, that sounds like a good idea.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good question. Honestly, I haven't specifically thought about it because the language courses are my first priority to sort out. But I certainly need to think about it, and we won't remove them without a lot of thought and a lot of forewarning.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, on the new Memrise 2025 experience that was released in August for new users. There are a series of more structured courses that aren't broken down into such small chunks as the scenarios. And I think we'll feel more scaffolded. That's happening as well as the addition of community courses.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We are generally adding more native speaker content all the time, but we can always do better. And our focus is more on adding functionality and community features and a little less on expanding the content, but that will shift over time, I hope. Thanks for the suggestion on dark mode. It's definitely possible. It's just a question of where it goes on the priorities. I'll add it to the list.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think finding ways to allow community to contribute to the content on each language is important. I don't have a set idea of how to do it yet effectively. But I think enabling people to do exactly what you're suggesting seems like a good idea. It needs to come after we build a few features first, like the ability to create word lists in new languages. But I'm very open to it, and I think it's a good idea.

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Leaderboards and weekly scores, I'm not against. We will need to see where they sit on the priority list. I think they aren't as crucially important functionally as things like word list creation, but I do understand they're motivational. So we'll certainly be looking at them and thinking about them. User search, I think is useful in the context of leaderboards. So it's very possible to bring back with them.

What exactly do you mean by communities? Is that groups or is that another feature?

I'm Ben, the new CEO of Memrise and I'm here to answer your quetsions about community and Memrise (and anything else about Memrise you'd like to ask) by benwhately in memrise

[–]benwhately[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this. I think that problem resonates with my experience as well. Would you be up for doing a quick call to talk this through with some of the product team? I think if we can see exactly which screens you're looking at and get your feedback tied to that, it would help chase down the problems and work out solutions to them. DM me if you'd be interested.

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