BrAin's blog

Is it legal to Use second account to improve ratting ?
By BrAin, history, 6 months ago, In English

I saw some users in my friend list, sometimes they give their contest in their second account. When they manage to score the expected range as they want and then they modify their code and resubmit the code to their original account. How much is it legal do you think?

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6 months ago, # |
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Dont cheat(USE 2 acc at once)!!. I use a second account when i dont feel confident giving a contest or i am not in a serious mood to give a rated contest .I use my second account to participate(using only 1 acc),this way i can practice through the rated contest without the fear of losing my rating in my main account(which will cause huge demotivation) and can also judge my performance. :)

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
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    Please read my question carefully. use second account is not the fact. i just mentioned here not to resubmit your modified code in multiple account in contest time.

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
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    No, i meant to use multiple account not during a contest LOL. But, to use it as a practice acount when u dont want to give a rated comtest. Using the second account u can participate and judge your performance ,because in virtual contest most of the time we are not as serious as we are during a contest so it is a better option for me to practice.

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      6 months ago, # ^ |
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      And to answer your question . No, it is neither legal nor helpful.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +40 Vote: I do not like it

It is very much not allowed to do that.

Does anyone actually read the rules in the yellow box before registering to a contest?:

The registration confirms that you:

  • ...
  • will not use multiple accounts and will take part in the contest using your personal and the single account.

Related to this, should Codeforces allow for anyone to participate unrated in any contest? There was a blog about this recently which got a lot of support but no comments from admins iirc. Based on mallicktariq's comment here, some people currently use alt accounts because they want unrated participation. Adding unrated participation would solve that problem and reduce the usage of alt accounts, even if only slightly.

What are the downsides to adding unrated participation for anyone?

  • Is it difficult to implement? I assume it wouldn't be, since unrated participation exists for higher rated people participating in lower divs and admins can make anyone's participation unrated in case of cheating (afaik it uses the same system behind the scenes but I might be wrong).
  • Are there more important features that are being developed?
  • Would allowing unrated participation decrease the number of rated participants significantly? If yes, does that have any big downsides?
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6 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

Similar to what @mallicktariq said — it's fine if you are just using a second account when you fear a rating drop. However, the second part of what you said — then they modify their code and resubmit the code to their original account — has to be cheating. Resubmitting code gives you a -50 point penalty, so using a second account bypasses it. This means it has to be cheating — 0% legal.

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