By which I mean a per-session time or rep limit.

Every time I study it eventually gets to the point where it says I have 5 or 6 left, then jumps back up to 20-something, then down again, and then back up again. It goes on and on, and I have never yet actually "finished" a study session.

I just go until I get sick of seeing the same words and then quit.

Maybe this is just me but I find it frustrating/discouraging, so I was wondering if there is a limit setting of some kind.

It's not just you. It's just a mildly unsettling thing for me, and I think there are three distinct issues:

1. The number of items left to review can be wildly volatile, which seems like a bug. I mentioned this elsewhere in the forum: I've seen the number fluctuate a lot, say from 300 to 500 within minutes. To know the "actual" number I sometimes go to the home page, where the message "X, you have Y items ready to review from Z lists." seems more stable and reliable. I haven't noticed it being quite so variable lately, so maybe this issue has been fixed.
http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=105826393#107871353

2. Even without bugs, I guess by nature the number of items left to review changes all the time, since items can be added or reviewed at any time. To make things more stable and less "Achilles and the tortoise" like, it would be nice if the continuous variation was hidden a little. The target number of items left to review could be updated once every hour, instead of all the time, or at unpredictable times, as it seems to be now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise

3. Then there's the question of when to stop... Skritter can be addictive, yes. But also Skritter never gets tired: it's always asking me if I know one more item. So I find myself reluctant to step away, but I get a bit resentful about this unflagging taskmaster. A screen that said something like "Congratulations, you have completed all reviews for today" (maybe with some stats about what I've done and where I'm at) would be a welcome reward. Of course after that I could choose to keep going, but at least I'd feel like I'd achieved something, and I'd know Skritter wasn't entirely unsatisfied with my performance today :-)

A "congratulations" page would be awesome! Just to know there is a point at which I've done "enough" would be nice. It does sometimes feel like Skritter is judging me XD

"Weak human! Only half an hour? You can't be done already!"

Getting down to zero is a goal you'll rarely accomplish on Skritter, so you might as well get used to having reviews due at all times. Once you've got more characters and words on Skritter, you'll find that you're not getting hammered with the same stuff as often, though it's a bit of a pain to work your way there.

There was a recent forum discussion about setting daily goals - number of reviews, total time, etc. - and I think that would definitely help with this problem. It can be discouraging to see the numbers stubbornly refuse to go to zero and it would be preferable to have some kind of positive reinforcement when we reach some kind of personal goal.

I try not to worry about it too much myself; in my book the progress bar is just sort of a vague suggestion. Remember that whatever numbers come out of the algorithm are estimates anyway. That is, an SRS algorithm is trying to figure out which items you remember and which you've probably forgotten and as such it's inherently a probabilistic, error-prone process, so don't worry too too much about the exact number it's giving you.

James

Oh I understand it changes,and I try not to too much attention... At the same time though it feels so anticlimactic.

"All right! Only 3 more to go; I have accomplished something today! .... Whaaa? 27 more to go... ffffuuuuuuuuu I suck ><"

Even though I know darn well that I am, it manages to make me feel as though I'm making no progress. I'll probably get more used to it as time goes on though. :) I'm on my first month right now, so I'm still adjusting to a new method.

I deal with this by manually adding new words. It's certainly not a perfect fix, but it lets me hit zero when I'm ready to!

the whole idea is that you can study for as little or as long as you like. How should Skritter decide when you have finished?

I often have word adding set to manual, and that way, if you stop adding words, you can just finish your reviews and stop :)

Yeah, the planned goal mode will allow you to set a soft rep limit. It'll count down your reviews in the review bar, and at 0 it will give you a congratulatory message. Then if you want to keep studying, the review bar will go negative and you can go for longer if you want.

I still have it on my list to fix the bug that causes the review numbers to fluctuate like that, but it's been low priority for a while. Some day I'll fix it!

Yay!

I just decided to hide the progress bar for now, as I don't like seeing it when it has so many items due. :P

If your browser supports custom CSS, you can hide it by adding these custom CSS rules for http://www.skritter.com/study -

#to_review_bar { display:none }
#added_bar { display:none }

James