When we come to CP, what is our goal overall? Some people could say that they want to improve their skill in solving problems and enhance their algorithm, some could say they aim to achieve better achievements in official CP competitions (ICPC, IOI...), or maybe some people just do it for fun. Each of us has our own ambition, but the similarity is that we want to come to CP in order to be better then ourself yesterday.
Recent days, I mean it has been one month since I know about the existence of cheating in CP, I had thought about it a lot. I usually attend CF and LC rounds, and I could find the comments about cheaters exist nearly in every round, which is a mess for me. Even right now, I could easily find a livestream in Youtube while the contest is running. I usually convince myself like: "That's okay, they couldn't go higher with those behaviours.", or: "That's okay, they could not go away from the system testing after the round", but in the long run it couldn't help much.
What is the goal of cheaters, we have already know about it, right? Higher opportunities in being employed by flexing a tremendous profile from an online platform is one of it (or I have to say that's a lot of it). Trying to find a job with a false information about the own coding skill is nothing than defraud a company. And personally this pisses me off, as this is not what a genuine coder should do, and it goes to far away from our initial noble ambition: improve ourself. At this point, I recall what Um_nik have said when it comes to "CP for jobs", which inspired me one year ago. Don't be misunderstanding here, I don't mean that doing CP won't have any affects in our career. It is supposed to help us a lot when we are in the actual work, not in our resume.
My another anxiety is that, maybe in some days, cheating will ruin any CP online platforms. We know that cheaters need to depend on someone to share the solutions, so the current level of the the one who shares solutions will decide the "game". Luckily right now, they are not too good to make the thing bad, but what will it be if a red, or even a black red coder does it instead? This is enough to be the end of online CP. And with the help of AI, plagiarism is hard to be detected and could make thing worse.
And they are what I want to say. To conclude, I'm pretty left helpless with cheaters, which I couldn't do much to prevent them (or I have to say I couldn't do anything). Although from now on I need to be more focus on training, I hope that the headquarters of any CP pages could take some steps in order to fight with those behaviours.
Finally, I want to hear your perspective about this.
P/S: I wrote the whole blog using my mobile phone, which takes me nearly 1 hour to finish. I mean, it's hard to sleep when thinking about this topic, maybe I'm too overthinking at this moment.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by DuongForeverAlone (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Auto comment: topic has been updated by DuongForeverAlone (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Time will solve this, 100%.
Not cheating, that will be around forever. But you'll learn to ignore it and it won't bother you anymore.
"Time will solve it".
That's what I really, really want it to happen. Just like Covid19 in 5 years ago, which made me thought that I need to be at home in the rest of my life, is actually ended.
as a fellow CP enthusiast, i understand, and even relate to what you're feeling. i sometimes wish companies would stop considering OJ ratings and stuff while shortlisting candidates for OAs and interviews, although i do understand that this might not be a logical possibility, at least it would make these cheaters leave the platform which would re-establish the sanctity and fun CP once used to have (still does, but sadly, it's diminishing).
nobody's winning in this, most of the honest participants who are passionate about the sport feel bad about how the standings are being manipulated, even plagued by these cheaters, and even the cheaters themselves are falling into a vicious cycle of self-deception and fraud which would do them no good, and certainly, one day they'll have to pay for their actions, just like everyone pays for theirs.
That's deep, and I hope the "law of karma" really work some day as you said.
They will pay one day. Or they won't.
smh ,What's the point of cheating when you'll eventually fail in OA rounds and interviews?
they will pay someone to give OA from their behalf
I really don't care about cheating unless the cheaters will get prizes instead of honest competitors. I am not here to win anything, but to learn and enjoy solving problems. There are cheaters in every sport, and here is not different. Actually, I think here in CP is easier to catch them, compared to chess, for example.
Regarding the AI, my concern is mostly "will they be able to solve something that I can't? (even I am pretty bad at this haha)". I think we are not this close of the moment that an AI will code better than tourist or other top competitor.
you are become candidate master, destroyer of cheaters
EDIT: I'm wrong on this point, f**k cheaters
At least the effect of having them for now is just making pupil harder to get (for pupil is the median of their rating)
In the last contest, the solutions upto E were made available by cheaters (blog) and solutions upto D were available on some youtube channel during the contest which could've have been easily found by anyone who had the intention to cheat. So they're aren't only making pupil harder to get but people can even cheat their way to candidate master or even master.
Okay I understand. I must be wrong at this point.
I've recently seen a blog that says the most common misconception about cheating is that they only cheat in lower divisions, but in fact there are a lot of them in Div. 1 as well, although I can't find the blog now.
My experiences include https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/130285 where some of them solved up to problem D, which results in performance of CM or even higher. Also after I solved E yesterday, I looked through my room to see if there is any suspicious execution time, and I found this with a bunch of useless codes in between, mostly likely to avoid plag checks. Considering that solving 4 problems results in Expert or higher, this isn't only a matter of reaching Pupil.
please ping me if any red or black coders decide to share solutions!!
black coders? Like MikeMirzayanov?
I really like your profile purple waifu with purple title..
Rude and insensitive of me, but let them rot. In a way, noticing them is somewhat partially fulfilling of their purposes — to be noticed by the wider audience (not yet employers, but yes).
Also, let them cheat their way and make a circus of themselves in professional scene. Through this, genuine programmers will relatively get more favor in the prolonged competition to keep the job.
I think this is wrong, as no one want to be known as a cheater. This is only true in the case of media, where there are some people try to do things to make themselves being noticed as much as possible. By the way, try not to be obsessed about cheaters is the solution I could do right now.
Just forget them I think. Sounds a bit narcissistic, but cherish your own growth instead of taking time thinking about those filth.
If anybody wants to volunteer in catching cheaters then you may join my discord server https://discord.gg/kKZhfAWKfE
Codeforces is taking blogs exposing cheaters seriously. Almost every cheater mentioned in these blogs gets banned. So we will publish a blog after every contest and others can help me in finding out these users by reporting them in the server. I'm basically trying to crowdsource it to make it sustainable.
We don't really "catch" them, but we are actually making them to create a new account to continue their journey. So I think it's not a good approach.
This reminds me something similar that goes on in online chess. There are a lot of people using stockfish(engines) to cheat in games. For this chess.com uses stats to see if someone overperforms in their games. I am not sure if it is possible on codeforces (as it is difficult to judge someone with new account), but hopefully we see some decrease in number of cheaters.
i wish all indians take aryanc403 as a role model
I'm grateful for CP.
join group AntiCheaters to support
How about the organization that I'm part of
I know people who also cheat for some reason. They just want to boost their ego when they see their color blue or something. It's just really dumb. But hey, those who flex their fake ratings will most likely not have anything else so I think people with the actual rating on codeforces will actually have other experiences that will give them an advantages in jobs.
Disagree. Cheaters are getting a performance of master, aditya_coder07 in the last Div1+2 round (EPIC Institute of Technology Round Summer 2024) for example.
Codeforces is already ruined for like, 95% of the participants in their original rating.
My actual goal of CP is to become better than those programmers who are helping cheaters. e.i, Probably to become like you!
Get good enough so they don't affect you 0_o
agree
I think the recent cheating trend, especially from indians is probably just because of the approaching intern and placement seasons in colleges, and should decrease in a month or two, since most of these people only do it for interns/jobs.
I don't know if I lost like 300 points in the recent months because of cheating or skill issues, but the coincidence that these cheating issues and rating loss occurred in the same time span hit me hard.
I think it's time that companies do not bother ratings from online platforms while reviewing CV!, They should rather focus on their OA and Interviews, and these LinkedIn Influencers should stop promoting using ratings in CV!
DuongForeverAlone I solely agree with what you said.....these malpractices are not only destroying the spirit of CP but also giving too much of mental pressure to them you are writing codes and logic on there own but are falsely accused of plag and there submissions are being skipped. Practicing approximately 150 questions in June and skipping few contests in that month because of few poor performances somehow was able to Solve 4 problems in the recent contest but but my solutions are skipped........now I fear of attempting contest because few more skips and my ID might get banned......what should I do in upcoming contest to have a proof that I did all the questions by myself ........please give me some idea buddy!
Do not cheat, and your solutions won't be skipped.
I didn't cheated mate.....I sware! I just want to keep my id safe in next contest so that it doesn't get banned.....so 'm bit confused as how to approach to write my solution!
(Assuming you are honest right here.)
Let your own logical thinking curate the way you come up with algorithms and their code, instead of the other way around, i.e. algorithm dictating your thinking.
Unless doppelganger is real, I don't believe there exists two people with 99.99th percentile of similar thoughtstream to be flagged — so make use of it. It's actually a lot of fun though, letting your mind running wild giving ACs by methods completely different from the tutorial present (and you get the tutorial as an extra lesson, so double win!)
Hey, first of all, I think this post resonates with a lot of my worries, which makes me feel better in a way. But I want to share some optimistic ideas:
For me, what makes CP contests valuable, is not the rating, but my friends standings, and how me and my friends perform against the same tasks. So on the mental side, since I am not competing alone but with a community, there could be a lot of cheaters, but as long as I am competing with people that I recognize, contests will be valuable to me.
Well, regardless of cheaters, if I do well or bad in a contest, is because I either could solve the problem that I wanted to solve, or I couldn't. So my second motivation in contests are the problems itself, and no amount of cheating can change the problems or my solving-skills.
Regardless of cheaters, as long as people belong in a community and people grow with the problem set, I think contests will be enjoyable.
Now on the negative side, I think cheating could destroy the platform, since it demotivates contestants, authors and coordinators. And this platform is basically sustained by the motivation of its members.
to be honest, initailly even i to joined a telegram channel where the lc solutins were discussed and this even earned me a badge, but suddenly once i got a plag warning then after i left this cheating work and started to do real grind and trsut me this has helped me a lot in getting most out of even a single prblm i solve or attempt and there is a sign of satsifaction...
so i owe an sorry to all grind coders and trust me now i have joined u guys :D
First I think that max rating that cheater can get is pupil but in last period I found some cheaters in my country that I know them could be specialist and if they will continue do this I think that they can be expert and this is very annoying for me and let me hate them very much... They do this just to show us that they are stronger than us and another stupid things.... One of the bad thing that could be because these cheaters that they register to an teams for official competition and then they just harms rest of the team in the contest because they do no thing and I saw a real people that they did this in real official competition..... I wish that Mike can make some thing about this and the skip system be stronger because it isn't very enough for this bad people and it should be more stringent..... I wish that you understand me and sorry for my bad English :")