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.