Question for ChinesePod

One reason for the U-I to be behind in development is that it's the newest level to come online. Just hasn't been enough time to catch it up yet I suppose.

henning, at some stage when doing AI research, I would have programmed these as OPS5 or Prolog rules (both programming languages). Today my predictive approach is different, I go read the future on the amazon :-)

Both Man2Toe and Goulniky are correct. There are so many Advanced shows because for a while we experimented with a separate Advanced site (ZH) which had its own publishing schedule independent of the others. Once it was brought back into fold, the publication frequency went back down to what you would expect. To answer your question, we have a 4-week cycle which yields the lesson level proportions we want, and within each cycle some randomization is done to keep users on their toes.

Sorry but why should I not be surprised that there are twice as many Newbie-level lessons being released? I'm assuming you're saying that there are many more users who call themselves newbies--but does that mean they need more than the large pile already in the archives in order to advance to the next level?

John, I missed your reply in my last post. What exactly is this 4 week cycle? What are the proportions you are after and why do you want them that way? Thanks,

well, considering all lessons are homemade, the required effort is a lot higher the more advanced they get (longer dialogue, vocab, more demanding to record). and I don't see any reason why newbies should go into the huge pile of existing lessons anymore than advanced students. as far as I'm concerned, if you've already used up and digested all the available material, you should probably look for other sources

dave, if you check my (reverse)chronological list you'll notice that since v2, there has been a regular spread of lessons across levels. Newbie are about twice as frequent and Media half as much but everything else seems pretty even. It should be no surprise to see twice as many Newbies though, other than the historical bias, this most likely reflects the user distribution. Are you suggesting there's not enough material to cover your own needs?

Henning, You just gave me a flashback to junior high school logic problems. Based on your six points, is it possible to guess next week's order?

No. Today was one of those "uncertainty days". It could have been: Advanced Elementry (which it turned out to be) Also not excluded according to the above rules: Media and Upper Intermediate Although those were not very probable, as there are additional rules which include probability rationales: *Usually* at max 1 UI per week *Usually* only 1 Media every two weeks

Henning if you don't mind me asking--what line of work are you in?

University Research & Education in the field of Information Systems. Why do you ask? :)

I just became curious when I saw how you broke down the lesson schedule. Thanks.

I have become quite adapt at guessing the next level. The following rules work pretty well: 1. No level is published twice a row 2. Media does not follow Advanced and vice versa 3. Intermediate does not follow UI and vice versa 4. No sequence of more than two lessons from the levels {Newbie, Ele} 5. At least 2 lessons distance between two lessons from the set {Adv, Media} 6. At least 2 lessons distance between two Newbie lessons I would prefer a defined schedule though - bring law and order to the CPod galaxy. And give us ahead anouncements of the lessons to enhance the anticipation experience... Besides that there can't be enough lessons per level. The sheer volume of lessons is a unique selling point of this site. If you ask me there need to be at least 730 lessons for all levels higher than Newbie. There is so much language to cover. OK, I admit, part of it is pure greediness. :)