When a Streak is broken, it’s broken. Even if you had a good reason to take a day (or more) off. Repairing a streak doesn’t help: you don’t get any rewards for particularly long streaks, and your language skills don’t improve by simply repairing the streak.
So now a serious question, I would REALLY like to know: Guys, why are so many of you so keen to get your streaks fixed?
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The assertion that “when a streak is broken, it’s broken” is incorrect. There are ways to fix broken streaks, as long as you have the coins to do it. However, if you don’t have the coins, or if you are away from the internet for longer than a day, there is no way to fix a streak.
An unbroken streak is an incentive to keep practicing every day.
When a streak gets broken, the break becomes a disincentive to keep practicing every day.
Sometimes, streaks get broken because of a bug. I had that happen a few months ago. When a streak gets broken and it’s not your fault, that’s an even bigger disincentive to continue using LingQ.
Some people need that incentive, and when it’s unfixable, they get a huge disincentive, which is why they ask for the streak to be fixed.
Personally, I think people should be able to freeze a streak, so that they can take a break every now and then (vacations, etc., or just to take a break from LingQ). Motivation is very important.
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I think the point being made is that in truth the ‘streak’ is broken because you didn’t do the work. Thus restoring the ‘streak’ is a cosmetic fix.
I have to agree with the OP. LingQ would claim that streaks encourage people to work consistently. I would argue that apps use streaks to get customers addicted to the app, and hence to generate a revenue stream. The problem with coins and streaks is that they are predicated on the comprehensible input myth. A learner should have other forms of work outside of LingQ such as written output practice.
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In German we have the Word Binse (pronounced roughly like been-ze), that describes something basically everybody should know. I think it really fits here.
Binse #1: All modern apps are designed in a way that should cause the user to use it as often as possible, as @LeifGoodwin already pointed out (and it is currently investigated to which degree this can cause addictive behaviour similar to drugs). This fits the subscription model used. Whether or not a user will be willing to pay for a product over and over again correlates with how useful the product is considered. And using an app regularly gives the impression of usefulness, even though it might not be the case. In addition it makes it more likely that someone else either notices you using the app or you are talking to someone about it, dragging in new customers. In regards to LingQ I cannot say whether they do this on purpose or some company coaches told them this is the way to go.
Binse #2: Ye’ old pals among us may remember pen&paper. So as much as I am willing to feel empathy for those of you who need the streak to motivate themselves, I may kindly suggest you just keep track of your streak the old school way, drawing a line for each day you have learned.
This way you have full control over your streak, when it gets broken and whether you want to address accomplished word counts on a daily basis or a weekly or whatever else.
Or you put a jelly bean in a glass for every day you fullfill your goals and if you break your streak you punish yourself by eating all of them at once. So the longer the streak gets, the higher the punishment if you break it. 
On another note: Why do people waste invest time on something they need an artificial motivator for? 
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If you haven’t learned, then you haven’t learned. Fixing the streak doesn’t change that. And why freeze the streak? You can take a break at any time if you want to. Why should such a stupid streak prevent you from doing that, even if it’s not frozen?
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Wieso so aggressiv?
Ich bin es ja nicht, die unbedingt den Streak repariert haben möchte. Ich breche ihn andauernd, und nicht einmal dann, wenn ich diese depperte Pop up-Meldung bekomme, dass ich meinen Streak um soundso viele Münzen reparieren kann, tue ich es. Wozu auch. Deshalb brauche auch keine Ratschläge für Stricherllisten und dgl. Ich brauche keine Kontrolle über den Streak, der ist mir nämlich vollkommen wurscht. Und genau deshalb wundere ich mich, wieso Leute, die ich für einigermaßen intelligent halte (immerhin lernen sie ja freiwillig Fremdsprachen), so darum betteln, dass man doch bitte ihren Streak reparieren möge.
Nur ein kleiner Rat: Es wäre wirklich besser, wenn Sie in Ihren Postings (nicht nur mir , sondern auch anderen Leuten gegenüber) einen anderen Ton anschlagen würden. Das würde der Diskussion durchaus dienlich sein.
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It’s not about learning. It’s about motivation. If you don’t have motivation, you can’t learn.
I guess some folks don’t get that.
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A streak can make the difference between skipping a day here or there and putting in consistent effort every day. Sometimes you finish the day with 5 or 10 coins less than your 100-, 200-, or 400-coin goal, while on all other days you overshoot your goal. Or you change time zones travelling and that throws you off. Mistakes happen. Speaking as someone with a 746-day streak.
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Obstorte’s post did not seem in the least bit aggressive to me. That is just my view of course.
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My streak is 1621 days. I leant the Arabic alphabet independently and then started with LingQ. I now watch TV programs and read Arabic every day. The steak is my motivation to do it every day so I keep up the consistency and it works for me. I am mighty proud of learning such a hard language on my own and who cares what motivates each person - it is different for everyone. My whole family on Christmas Day asked me if I’d done my Arabic as they know the streak is important to me - and that is fantastic support. What perplexes me is why people care, or are even interested? Whatever motivates you, works for you. Just do you. I get excited every day to do my Arabic 
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Neither did I reply to you directly nor did I had any aggressive intention. If you make such a claim you might be so kind to explain which aspect of what I have written it is that you consider aggressive. Did I add a humoristic note in my post? Yes. But even if you don’t share my kind of humour, it doesn’t make it aggressive.
Btw.: It wasn’t me who opened a thread in order to question the behaviour of some members that has no effect on oneself at all. And what would probably be helpful for the discussion is if we stick to one language, so other users don’t have to use Google Translate in order to follow it. 
(I hope the amount of smileys is sufficient for you to believe me coming in peace).
It is totally understandable that you need motivation to invest time and energy in something like learning a language. The thing is, as I stated above, that one would assume that if you decide to do so, you have some sort of motivation. Either an external one, like the necessity to learn a new language for your career or because you have moved into a new country, or an internal one like interest in the culture.
If you say that without the streak you don’t have the motivation to learn on a regular basis, I wonder why you decided to learn it at all. Why are you investing time and energy into something you have no passion for?
You are absolutely right that I don’t get that. But the reason is because you haven’t told me why this is the case.
And just to make it clear. There is absolutely no reason nor necessity for you or others to justify yourself. You can do whatever you want for whatever reason you want. And you don’t have to tell us why. For me it would only satisfy my curiousity and help me to understand you better. Because obviously you and I have completely different mindsets (at least in that matter).
Because some of us are curious about how other people think. I wouldn’t immediately take it as an offense if someone asks you why you are doing something. Asking you a question doesn’t equal to questioning you. Of course, I can only speak for myself. But my interest is not to negate you using the streak.
In summary I think the most annoying aspect in that matter is that although permanently people post in the forum on that matter, no one at LingQ ever came to the conclusion that it may be an improvement for their customers if they would get more control over this particular aspect of the app. (Like any other aspect, too). 
(Is there a statistic that shows you which smiley you are using the most, because that one definetely will make it into the Top 3).
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Another language learning website I use gives an option to display the Streak (it will show 0 if you break it) or Days Played, which will only grow with every day you use it, no matter how many breaks you had in the past. Personally I find it much more motivating, because it provides the satisfaction of seeing how much I’ve already studied, but without unnecessary stress and fear of loosing my streak.
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Why do LingQ need more control? Those who like it, use it. Those who don’t, ignore it. As a lifetime member, they are not making any more money from me by forcing me to renew my subscription to keep my streak up. I genuinely enjoy seeing the streak go up and know I’ve been proactive in the language every day for over 4 years.
And I’m not adverse to people asking questions, I’m just perplexed why some people don’t understand how it can be a motivating factor. Some people collect coins. I’ve no idea how many I even have but if coins keeps someone motivated then I’m all for them. Each to their own.
Apologies if I’ve not learnt the art of quoting a previous comment correctly and it comes out wrong - I’ll go back to Arabic 
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Not LingQ, the users. Sorry, I notice now that my sentence was misleading. I was assuming that the context makes it clear who they is meant with (the customers in this case). 
Mea culpa.
Noone is denying that. The question isn’t why the streak is motivating, but why you need that extra motivation, as I’ve explained in my earlier post.
But as said, pure curiosity.
I’m not sure what you mean so I just say “No worries, everything’s fine”.
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Good question. For me, it’s because I know that if I consistently keep doing something I will improve. Obvious yes, but where it gets interesting is that despite absolutely loving it, I know that life can get in the way and if you miss one day, you miss one week etc. So the streak is a means to ensure I prioritise the Arabic no matter what is happening that day (Christmas, funeral, operation….). The streak itself is not the motivating factor, the streak just ensures I do it every day, and I thereby stay motivated by improving.
I’m not learning Arabic for my career or the culture or even because I have Arab friends. I wanted to learn a hard language and as soon as I started I was hooked. It’s not language learning for me, it’s a passion bordering on obsession as I can happily do 8 hours a day and still be excited for the next day 
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I don’t think anyone is saying you should not use the streak feature if it works for you. As someone else said, enjoyment is a big factor in learning.
However I personally find it annoying. The danger is that a student ends up adopting a learning methodology that benefits LingQ rather than a better alternative methodology that benefits the student. LingQ is a good tool, but it has severe limitations, specifically no output, as it is based on Krashen’s theory which is complete nonsense. Thus - in my opinion - it should not be the only language learning tool that the student uses.
In my own case, I spend time reading childrens books in German, I translate them and put the translations between the pages of the book. I also practice written output, and compare with Google translate. There are of course many other methodologies.
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Why is this a limitation? LingQ is a reading app and only a reading app. If the student wants to learn more than just reading they can do it elsewhere. I’m constantly baffled by why people want the app to be more than it is. Isn’t it up to the student to determine what their methodology is? I’m a student and I don’t speak any Arabic. I know if I took lessons my reading, listening as well as speaking would improve. But I don’t want to. I want to read and watch TV, so I use LingQ, Netflix and YouTube. One day I may change my mind but until then, LingQ is (in my opinion) excellent value for money as a reading App - if you are a lifetime member. As I’ve used it every day, for 4.5 years, I couldn’t afford not to be a lifetime member (and yes I realise that some people are learning more than one language so this is not an option).
Can’t you just ignore it? I get a pop up every day telling me how much my activity has gone up/down. It’s not my thing so I just ignore it. 
Why? If a student just wants to learn reading, why not? That’s all some of us want to do. We are all different. If I ever want to speak, I will go to something like italki and still be impressed with LingQ as my reading app.
One thing I have learned is why I don’t respond much on the forum - it really takes time when I could be reading - thankfully I’ve done my streak for the day
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It’s baffling to me too. LingQ is great at what it does. If it ever was to become everything some folks seem to want it to be, the price would undoubtedly go up. My budget for language learning is small, so I prefer LingQ to stick to what it does best.
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Now you misquoted me. I don’t even know where you took that passage from As said, I understand the way the streak works as a motivator, no need to explain it.
But you still need a streak?! It sounds like you have a lot of intrinsic motivation.
I don’t think that is the point. Of course, the streak can be ignored. But it is a feature and as such it took time to be implemented. And it takes time to react to those who want their streak to be repaired. Time that could have been spent elsewhere. And with elsewhere I don’t mean adding some super fancy additional features, but to work on fixing the flaws that LingQ has in it’s essential features.
Like you I mainly see LingQ as a reader. But there are tons of things that it doesn’t do very well that are basic aspects of a reader imho, mainly the formatting.
How many days in a row I have spent learning is something I don’t need an app for to track. I can count. But I need the app to allow me to adjust how it displays the text. I need it to properly respond to input and give me the means to adjust the way the input works to my needs, for example by allowing for adjusting the keyboard shortcuts. I need to be able to adjust the formatting so I can properly read and work with the text on mobile devices, which I gave up on at least on my phone due to this. These are very elementary and actually not hard to implement features. Instead we have streaks and challenges.
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But I do! However, I don’t need shortcuts and my formatting is fine. So whilst your points are important (for you) these are immaterial in the context of streaks. My needs are different from yours and I need the streaks.
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