Copied problem in COOK89

general
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21

This needs to CHANGE as soon as possible.
@admin the ratings are updated too plz see they are reversed are the codechef admins so busy in ICPC that these guys didnt even have time to se problems

TO be Honest, from the time i gave icpc i have completely lost my interest in codechef which instead of promoting competitive programming which apperantly is thei sole MOTTO during regional sites qualification, stealing problems available to everyone online.

If this doesnt stop I am sure many people will lose interest in the contests held here

LOOKING FOR RATINGS REVERSAL ASAP

1 Like
22

moreover, people are getting AC in O(n^2) such poor test cases is not fair for everyoneā€¦should be unratedā€¦didnā€™t expect from codechef

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for(i=1;i<n;i++)
{b+=v[i];if(b>=d)
{ b=0;
for(j=i;j>=e;jā€“)
{
b+=v[j];
if(b>=d)
{
e=j;break;
}
}
for worst case this goes O(n^2) but got AC

24

OK, it seems Iā€™m in minority regarding opinion on this one :slight_smile: And Iā€™m probably going to be rather harsh here.

Come on, looking at this problem it is kinda obvious that it has been used before (and more than once).

I wouldnā€™t call it ā€œcopiedā€ problem - with this kind of wording it sounds to me like setter is being accused with taking a problem from other source instead of preparing it by himself. I donā€™t think it is the case here :slight_smile:

It is definitely not a good idea to give such task, and it is a fault by setter/tester to not check it, or at least a very questionable decision to use the problem if they knew that ā€œsmallest subarray with sum greater than a given valueā€ Google query will give you enormous number of results. People say N^2 was passing - OK, thatā€™s probably another fault by tester.

Yet overall mood of comments is really weird to me. It is both funny and sad at the same time. OK, maybe I donā€™t get that ā€œmake it unratedā€ part because I donā€™t care about rating; but assuming one would care about rating, Iā€™m trying to imagine a situation when somebody says ā€œletā€™s make a CF round unrated because this problem is similar to following problem from past contestā€ after the roundā€¦ This kind of decisions would be a great way to make CF unpopular :slight_smile:

Cheating? I even had to re-check code of conduct at CodeChef to be sure that it doesnā€™t contain yet another weird trashy rule. OK, my bad - indeed, they do have one for it. Fine, you can call these guys cheaters because they didnā€™t add a comment clarifying that the original code wasnā€™t authored by them. Because thatā€™s exactly whatā€™s required here for third party code. Yet another weird rule which is different from what you are used to at any other competitive programming platform, but I donā€™t even want to waste my time on criticizing it more :slight_smile:

Going back to these ā€œcopying problemā€ accusations - Iā€™m not going to say that I know for sure that it didnā€™t happen hereā€¦ But here is how it looks right now: I see a lot of comments saying the same, half of them are written by newbies, and they accuse strong contestants of ICPC WF level who are also experienced setters in stealing a problem. Not ā€œnot checking if a problem is well knownā€, but ā€œcopying a problemā€. And just to make it more funny, this ā€œcopyingā€ occurred on filler task. Yep, it wasnā€™t that typical ā€œwe got all the easy problems for a set, and now we need some nice idea for hard problem, letā€™s look for itā€, but instead two yellow/red guys decided to steal a filler problem which has to be added to the set because it must contain 5 problems and because contestants of all levels participate there. Sure, thatā€™s exactly how contests are being prepared.

On a side note, talking about the contest itself - Iā€™d say that it wasnā€™t the best contest at Codechef ever (and this particular issue adds it another negative score), but it was generally OK, problems were nice and clear, and I wouldnā€™t like to get this setter lost for CodeChef simply because somebody wasnā€™t happy with the fact that filler task has been used before.

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@lebron chutiya hai?

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First thing, @coderbaba I didnā€™t like ur reply at all.

Second, i donā€™t care about rating. (Coindidently i didnā€™t even participated in this one, but that not the only reason).

Third, i agree with you @lebron on the point, that some problems need to be filler. Agreed. But what happens that when that particular filler problem is the problem that usually decide ranklist for middle level.

Fourth, i believe thereā€™s no harm in using past problem, as long as the setter ensure (reasonably) that thereā€™s no public solution for this problem. I found these link within 2 min on google.

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Fifth, i too liked this problem set (though didnā€™t participate due to unavoidable circumstances) and appreciate problem setting team for this round, but i could never appreciate the idea of publically solution available problem. Even if the problem statement was like, requiring u to make an interesting(even if small) insight that reduces this problem to a standard one, i will appreciate it, but not a googlable problem.

Sixth, Iā€™m actually glad that u shared your view point @lebron

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Iā€™m sorry about this issue, when it was proposed to me it sounded like a standard problem, but the fact that it included negative numbers and the solution involved using a stack and not as simple as binary search/two pointers, that fact made me feel that the problem is original.

Unfortunately, I missed googling this problem before approving it.

Thereā€™s no evidence that the problem setter actually copied the problem, so we will not penalize him.

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29

Thank you for the reply @kingofnumbers . The decision taken is, indeed, quite fair in my opinionā€¦ :slight_smile:

30

Why should an action be taken against them? If the solution was available already, then its not their fault to be greedy and copy. Its against the spirit, yes, but its not the domain where we should dive and penalise them. Get back to me on mail if theres any more clarification needed.

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This is what I hate about the community since past few months. I dont see any constructive criticism in your post, and it seems like crying to me. Please have enough manners/sense/decency to formalize your complaints (and their structure/tone).

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Just what percentage of users are affected by it? How many O({N}^{2}) solutions passed? You can give this feedback to the tester, that he did not do a good job in testing the problem- thats perfectly fine.

But asking for cancellation of contest/make it unrated because 10-15 solutions passed is not logical, and let me assure you, the rating change wont be more than 5 by those. Its not worth the trouble, and the contest was more than 95% fair. Not good to make it unrated due to bad 5%

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33

@lebron I agree with your criticism of the third-party code rule if the rule is to be taken at face value. However, I think the purpose of the rule is to determine the source of the code. In this case, since the source is already known, those who used the code should not be punished in my opinion.

34

If you have so many problems, why are you here. Honestly, you have 2 options- improve yourself, or cry in a corner forever. Sorry, but you arent going to get success with this attitude.

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35

Agree with @vijju123. This is not ā€œcheatingā€.

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36

I agree with most of your points @lebron. Just clarifying one point-

The reason why codechef asks for a third party link is because, when multiple people copy from same source, then plagiarism detector flags those solutions. During manual re-checking, it makes things convenient if they include the link. Plus, they get another site to keep an eye on, to make sure no future problem is matching with some already known one.

The contest will be made unrated only if its unfair to majority of people, which I dont think is the case here.

37

Hey, this is my solution, I am getting a WA, using a two pointer method, similar solutions have passed, and I really have no clue where Iā€™m going wrong. A brute checker also has been written if anyone wants to verify a case.
Thanks in advance!

38

Yep, I understand that motivation behind the rule is probably like that. It just doesnā€™t make the rule less weird to me. I donā€™t have any good solution for it. I know that there is nothing like that at Codeforces, and I think we donā€™t see feed filled with ā€œI got banned unfairā€/ā€œcheaters arenā€™t getting bannedā€ there, but I donā€™t know if it is really an issue for CF or not, and in case it isnā€™t - how did they managed to make it or why it works well for them.

39

Thatā€™s the thing on my mind when i make such a post - negative criticism. @vijju123 i already braced myself to ignore such comments on my post.

And @coderbaba, i donā€™t see u being affected with the rating change. Also, about your MOTTO, can u find any proof? if u can, write an email to codechef admins. And then, you call @lebron a ch***ya, a guy with much more expreience both at coding as well as problem setting than you and me too.

I didnā€™t reply earlier because i was intentionally ignoring your answer.

PS: Pardon for rough tone but i mean it.

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Agreed @vijju123

PS: codechef isnt an avatar of god. It too can make mistakes. My sole motive was to bring this issue to notice of admins, not to make contest unrated. We dont know how it works behind the scenes of problem setting much (though i would like to for long challenge, sometime).

1 Like