Is this month’s long challenge going to extend because of the cheftak problem issue?
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@vijju123 Is there any actual ETA for the fix to the challenge? It’s been more than a week since codechef knew about the problem and said it was going to be fixed soon. It’s been like a day and a half that the “6 hours” mentioned in the other thread expired. I don’t really care when the fix is done anymore, but a realistic ETA would be nice. Will it even come into place before the contest was supposed to end (in ~12 hours)?
I strongly feel that snackdown preps are keeping them busy, because @mgch and @admin has to account for that as well -much more than long challenge. Sadly I am not a part of panel this time, so neither can I monitor over progress of any issue (because I am contestant) nor can I fix or try to fix the issue myself. 
I am trying to do what I can - pinging @admin whenever I see any thread. Even the extension was supposed to happen 2-3 days ago - idk why it didnt happen, but I will push them for a it.
You’ve any suggestions? 
I get that Snackdown is part of the explanation, but what’s frustrating is that this came up almost a week before the Snackdown qualifiers which should have been more than enough time even with Snackdown prep.
There is one worrying thing. What happens if the long challenge ends and all submissions become public? Surely all tasks can’t be extended then?
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As for suggestions I don’t know. Things have progressed to a pretty weird state. I suspect just dropping the challenge isn’t an option either considering there are 17 people sharing 1st place right now, which is an interesting situation for prizes. This is something that could have been prevented long ago, but codechef has put both themselves and the contestants in a weird situation.
At that time, @mgch suffered terribly :(. His only ray of light in this cruel world faded, and he lay in dismay watching with teary eyes his miserable loved one (read: laptop). Long story short, his laptop broke and only he could fix it and he couldnt for first few days. Then snackdown came in…
Yes, it could had been handled better. No doubt.
There is one worrying thing. What happens if the long challenge ends and all submissions become public? Surely all tasks can't be extended then?
I wont let that happen lol! Worst comes to worst I will fight them to get challenge Q fixed first before proceeding, till now its just that I didnt want to meddle so much in their process because i am a part of this contest as a contestant.
The problems in my mind are actually different. Not everyone would want an extension XD. See div 2 ranklist, I think over 100-200 people on rank 1.
The prize situation, isnt interesting sadly. They will award “Top 20/10 people” not “Top 20/10 ranks”. Meaning…if 2 people are at same rank, then I think the leaderboard by default sorts them by submission time. Perhaps they will take first 20 guys in leaderboard. (I know, might sound really weird/non-satisfactory considering “there isnt any penalty or time factor in long challenge!” but theres no other way in my opinion which wont exhaust codechef’s budget in this single contest XD)
As long as I dont sleep till end of long (its 4am and my eyes are drooping XD), I’d fight for it. Delays had been enough already.
RIP laptop ;_;7
What would had been nice is to have some feedback about what was actually going on. From a contestant’s point of view we got that message early in the competition and then it was radio silence, no info at all until posts in the forum complained about it.
I don’t want an extension of the non-challenge problems either. A few days to work on just the challenge problem (with all other problems locked) would be much preferable to that, but I’ve got no idea if that solution is even feasible.
Also just to be clear, don’t take any of this as if I’m complaining about you. You’re being really helpful as a point of contact to people who can actually do stuff, even in this case where you really shouldn’t need to do anything.
Even if there are good reasons for the delays, communicating these with competitors would have helped a lot. As it stands the whole thing has just been a frustrating experience, which is why I’m being a bit grumpy about it. Just waiting for days and days after solving the tasks for the challenge problem that never showed up.
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IMO, Only submission for Challenge problem should be allowed for 2 days. For non challenge problems, problems should have been locked today!
The prize for the first ranked - (sum of all cash prizes)/(No of candidates)? Maybe amount is not sufficient. But still better than sorting by time.
Laddu - (sum of total laddus)/(No of candidates)?
@vijju123 lol
Scoreboard by default does not sort by time, and I never understood how scoreboard sorting happens.
it sorts by your least(time of ur code to run),if its same then by memory
Sorting is so weird.
I solve some problem before my friend and everytime he gets higher (better) position.
Don’t know how are they sorting it XD.
But not according to time surely.
Might be mistaken on sorting. XD
The contest is extended. I dont think its possible to extend it for only one problem without a lot of hassle.
@algmyr - Yes, you’re right on communication. I myself stress that announcement section should be used a lot more frequently. I cant say why this isnt done this time, perhaps because they were busy it slipped their mind? But yes, I agree that its very essential.
Is there ETA for the challenge fix other than “soon”?
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Yup, thats weird for me as well. I will see whatever I can do for the issue