Swistakk's blog

Virtual participation during another contest
By Swistakk, history, 7 years ago, In English

Hey,
I just have one simple question that I think is not answered in any FAQ, rules etc. — can I safely virtually participate in some contest if there is another ongoing contest? I wanted to virtually participate in some contest, but I see that there is Div2 contest in less than 2 hours and I am afraid that at some point my submissions will stop being evaluated. It would be good to have a public answer to that and if somebody knows how it currently looks like then I would be glad to also know what happens in a case of gym contest during ongoing contest.

  • Vote: I like it
  • +52
  • Vote: I do not like it

»
7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +39 Vote: I do not like it

Good day to you,

we made such things multiple times and we never had problems with this. Yes — it might happen that the site will be laggy or the queue will take longer time, yet your submissions will be evaluated as usually.

Have nice day ^_^

→ Reply
»
7 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +48 Vote: I do not like it

Take it like this: even if you could, it's bad practice. (Pun intended.) You're definitely putting extra load on the site and feeling the extra load from an ongoing contest. Part of CF is blocked during contests exactly for this reason; idk if it includes virtual contests, but even if it didn't, there's no guarantee an unexpected crash won't happen. That's why they're called unexpected, unlike Windows errors, which are always expected.

You can still do a virtual contest elsewhere — for example CSAcademy.

→ Reply
  • »
    »
    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +127 Vote: I do not like it

    Oh no, codeforces is going to experience a load of 6515 people instead of 6514, I am no better than a criminal.

    → Reply
»
7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +40 Vote: I do not like it

I had several experiences when I started a "virtual participation" while another contest was going on. I found that sometimes my submission would stay in the state of "In queue" for, like, one or two minutes, but it seems that there are no other problems as far as I consider.

→ Reply