When submitting a solution in C++, please select either C++14 (GCC 6-32) or C++17 (GCC 7-32) as your compiler. ×

majiamajia66's blog

By majiamajia66, history, 3 years ago, In English

As far as I know, many low-rating users like question setting. Their dream is to give codeforces a question. Their idea is also very good. However, codeforces restricts the question setter to be above blue (this year it is increased to orange). Maybe div3 can be opened to all users, so that each user may become the problem setter? There is a problem here. If you do this, it will be a huge challenge to the review mechanism. Maybe codeforces can select a group of trusted users (such as previous authors, users with orange names and above), vote for each question in the div3 question bank, and select some of the highest votes for review at regular intervals? I think this can improve the frequency of div3 and the quality of the questions, and also allow more low-rating users to participate in the question-making process?

  • Vote: I like it
  • -21
  • Vote: I do not like it

»
3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +24 Vote: I do not like it
»
3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

I used to have similar thoughts as well but after reading the following comment, I've learnt otherwise.

Perspective

To me, this was very educational with regards to problem setting and reviewing. To avoid duplicate problems, it's almost imperative that the setter have significant prior experience, otherwise it's just a lot of spamming that the review bench has to go through.

Addressing your second point, your suggestion of opening the pool of div-3 questions to a larger set of master/above reviewers does sound good to me but I doubt that rating/ previous experience alone would suffice to get the desired trust value to be allowed to view questions hence that too would be unlikely. (I understand that I may be wrong here, as I'm not really clear on what suffices to be trusted as a reviewer)

Lastly, I'm happy that you shared your thoughts with the community, healthy discussions always bring value :)

  • »
    »
    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    Thank you for your comment! This is just an idea at first, and there must be many imperfections. However, I think that certain measures can be taken to prevent such things from happening. For example, if information on the number of votes is hidden, people will not know which topics were selected for review by the coordinator. The author’s information is hidden in the game notification and only announced after the game. The question bank will be closed before the announcement of the contest is issued until the end of the contest. This idea is definitely helpful to the quality of the subject, although the security issues that may arise should not be underestimated. But if this idea can be perfected, it may become a mature idea. Codeforces belongs to all of us, and we may be able to make it better together.

    • »
      »
      »
      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      Those are indeed some very nice ways to tackle the aforementioned challenges. It would be great if the changes do get implemented. Since, as you said- it really is the dream of many to give codeforces a question and if the barriers to the same can be broken, that's always a welcome development.

»
3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

The idea is nice indeed, I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. Making a good problem is of course quite difficult, but the bar is arguably lower for Div 3. The more people can propose problems, the quicker we make rounds--regardless of problem quality, because more problems implies more good problems.

I'd suggest allowing everyone who has written, say, 5 contests, to propose a problem, and then people from Div 1 could be given access to read the problem statements and, if the idea sounds nice to them, propose it officially. This could even be implemented without asking Codeforces admins and I might volunteer to take part in this.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea?

  • »
    »
    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +2 Vote: I do not like it

    Will this cause more alt accounts (from Div. 1 coders) to participate in Div. 3 rounds and affect the rating of actually low-rated coders?

    • »
      »
      »
      3 years ago, # ^ |
      Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      I am sure there are very few people who are clever enough to get Div 1 but dumb enough to want to solve Div 3 problems to get fake rating.

»
3 years ago, # |
Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +27 Vote: I do not like it

Actually it's worse than that. Codeforces has stated they do not accept Div 3 round proposals at all. This was expected when they said they have a large queue and it's difficult to handle all the proposals quickly, but now that the contest rate is falling, maybe the admins should consider relaxing rules, or using a mixed scheme where, say, simple problems are first filtered by Div 1 participants and only then passed on to coordinators.

  • »
    »
    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    Thank you for your comment. I think that although this idea has great shortcomings, especially in the security part, if someone contributes to improve it, it may really become a mature idea. I am not very careful about downvote, but I hope that the downvote can write down your real thoughts after downvote, for example, what are the defects in this idea, which will be very helpful to improve it.