[rjh29]

imo if you don't make the card then either: the word isn't important, or it comes up again, and you finally do make the card. It's not a big deal.

I'm about 10 years on my Anki deck and have reached the same conclusion as you about keeping deck size down. A single card has a huge time investment if you add up the reviews. Even more if it's a bad card and you fail it a lot. As the words you learn get more and more niche, it's important to weigh up whether a card is worth making or keeping. I actively delete cards that make me feel 'meh' when I see them, or that I fail a lot, so I don't lose motivation.

[barking_biscuit]

These days I have a policy to just suspend once the interval hits six months, so that deck size has a max cap and can eventually go to zero if adds stop for a long enough period. Long enough to bootstrap niche words and hopefully maintain them through reading.