How was plagiarism detected by codechef in NOV14 and when the ratings would be reverted?

My ratings are dropped obviously that’s why I am asking this question. Codechef mailed me the codes which it found plagiarised and they wanted a explanation from me. I did mailed them explaining that I was wrongly classified.

Link to similar codes for November Challenge 2014:

Looking upon these two codes I found the similarity in basic library inclusion; common variables ‘t’, ‘str’ and ‘ans’ which are very trivial to be used by anyone; since the variables were same the scanning and printing using ‘cin’ and ‘cout’ also got same. Logic of both codes may be same. But counting distinct character is a standard problem. The methodology for logic implementation is quite different if you see closely.

My question is why were these codes classified as similar?

And when will be the ratings reverted back?

If the same check applies in future contest then one should not think about solving the problem but rather think about OUT OF BOX variable names which no one else could guess in their wildest dreams.

Or else you would be left with dropped ratings and you have to explain the Codechef Team - first on call then by mail and then waiting to see if they found that you didn’t violated Codechef’s Code of Conduct for just counting distinct characters using trivial variable names.

“Irony- Getting ratings reduced within 1 day after the long challenge, but increasing the ratings for false-positive cases taking so much time.” - Comment by a user on similar topic.

This is bad user experience.

P.S. I would prefer thinking about OUT OF BOX variable names in simple questions from next time.

10 Likes

Please be patient, we have this auto detection only for a while and it has to be configured properly. My opinion, it, that for such easy problem almost all solutions in same programming language would be very similar…

4 Likes

Hi Garry, can we discuss this over a call. You can can you get in touch with us at the following number.
Office: (022) - 30797709 (Weekdays 11:00 am to 7:00 pm)

I had a discussion with a codechef authority. They told me that they checked the codes and they find it to be similar. I repeated what I had said in this post and I have no more analogies. But their decision is final. I will not indulge myself anymore convincing codechef as it leads to waste of time for both of us. Therefore I will not be reclaiming my lost ratings. However I will still not accept that I cheated or violated Codechef’s Code of Conduct in NOV14 without proper justification. Thanks for your support.

True MOSS on easy problem makes no sense. I think codechef does not want us to follow the conventions.