tmwilliamlin168 posted this video on solving A-D questions of Google Code Jam.
While I know that it might be technically allowed under the rules of the Qualification Round: I really think that the video should not be posted while the contest is ongoing, because it seems to be against the spirit of Competitive Programming, and I believe that many people will blindly copy the solutions to advance to the next round — something that helps no one.
I believe that discussing solutions with someone is very different from having them give you the answer outright — and while this round/video might not affect the future rounds and outcomes — it really kills the mood of solving questions by yourself etc.
What do you think about it?
Bhosdiwala hai saala.
It's unexpected that Codeforces community can upvote such abusing comment :)
maannn, what a buzzkill xD
I also thought about publishing my performance in the morning but FAQ clarifies this a little bit:
https://codingcompetitions.withgoogle.com/codejam/faq#competing
So yeah, the video should stay hidden.
EDIT: It's private now. Obviously, the rules are very confusing because they explicitely say that you won't be disqualified for sharing anything during a round. It suggests that it's allowed to publish the videos just like that. Spirit of the competition aside, nothing illegal was done.
What's the point of a qualification round if people can pass by repeating the steps in a video...
but if google would have any issue, why they would mention you will not be disqualified if u discuss solution during qualification round.
If you discuss a solution, you still have to solve the problem with at least some amount of your programming skill. The point of qualifiers is to not let people with zero knowledge of programming pass.
yes, i understand. but what is wrong in making people happy. Obviously tmwilliamlin168 was not giving them round 1 or any other solution. its just a warm up round. so i think helping needy or beginners is not bad. Petr must agree with me.
The philosophy of a 15 year old in a nutshell.
Answer: you're not omniscient. By trying to make someone happy, you can very easily end up making them (or someone else) unhappy.
Why are you bringing Petr to defend your argument? XD
because Um_nik is very very angry with me. I fear to tag him.
The fuck is wrong with you? You've been commenting a tonne of crap on various blogs since dreamoon's contest (i.e. since the time you came back). Stop being an ass and commenting rubbish that adds no pointers to a discussion.
[EDIT:]
I'm sorry for the tag MikeMirzayanov but wouldn't it be a good time to implement something that can keep fake accounts on a check? I don't wanna sound like another one of them nonsensical grey coders requesting a feature update but yeah, you can see for yourself what some peeps end up doing....
Actually, I've always asked myself the question "what's the point of a qualification round?"
It is irrelevant to the competition, as clearly for anyone that has realistic chances of advancing during the next rounds, the only practical effect is you get disqualified if you are unavailable during that weekend (maybe there should be automatic qualification if you advanced in a previous code jam year?). I don't believe it is to filter out people who have zero knowledge of programming; any of the other rounds would do that just fine.
If there is a real reason, it is probably more of an educational one. So we should be discussing with that spirit in mind.
I don't think that Google has a qualification round with educational effect in mind. Here are some other ideas:
1) To decrease a load in real short rounds by not allowing everybody to participate.
2) To get a looot of people to do anything in Code Jam and thus be a bit more involved in this huge event by Google.
3) To add one more easy step in the big event that Code Jam is. It wouldn't be equally big if it was just R3 and then finals, right?
Anyway, if there's some point threshold to advance, it doesn't seem ok to copy or rewrite somebody else's solution. Publishing your solution will for sure make tens of people to do so.
I was using educational also in the sense of "everyone has at least some problems they can try to solve"; in those senses (2 and 3) publishing solutions doesn't affect it at all. Of course increasing participation is more fun for everyone even if having to do the qual round is a bit of an annoyance.
In sense 1 it slightly affects it, however I think kickstart is not limited and google servers handle it fine?
The only really meaningful way I can see publishing solutions affecting anything is decreasing the achievement of those who qualified by themselves. Which is good enough of a reason on its own to not do it, I suppose.
(2) and (3) are affected too. It's something else to require solving some problems vs. to just provide a platform where one can submit something if they want to. The latter is more like a testing round, not qualifications.
I did not see the FAQ section (which says you should not post solutions publicly) as I only read the rules section, but in my defense, that rule should've been in the rules section. Now, I have made the video private.
First of all, if you haven't seen this rule from https://codingcompetitions.withgoogle.com/codejam/rulesandterms here it is: "7.1 Qualification Round. Notwithstanding Section 7.1(E) of the Coding Competitions Terms, you will not be disqualified in the Qualification Round of Code Jam for using information from or sharing information with others about problems."
Sharing "information" includes both ideas and codes, so this seemed to be fine.
The purpose of the qualification round, as I saw it, was to give beginners a chance to get started with CP. To give them motivation and the achievement of solving problems in a contest (or Google could just qualify everyone for Round 2, the round in which the T-shirts are selected). I know that it could be sad for some people who tried hard to solve the problems in this qualification round, but I was doing this with helping beginners in mind.
Imagine a beginner who had never participated in these contests before. They might solve the first problem, but then they get stuck on the second problem. They look at the scoreboard and realize that they are at the bottom. They might think "Am I too dumb for this?" and just ragequit and forget about CP even before the round ends, versus if they had seen the solution and thought "Actually, the solution does not seem too hard. With a bit of practice, I can definitely become better!". I think it's in the general interest of the CP community to attract beginners to these contests.
In general, in the future, I guess I will read more parts of websites more carefully before doing something slightly risky like this.
To be honest, this is still a bullshit explanation. So why don't you publish solutions for Div. 3 rounds during the contests? Apart from the rules, the idea is pretty similar, isn't it?
Hey, you can't take on a kid in this way. He did something which was not a mistake.
I can and I will. I know that William is not stupid and he is aware that it was a mistake — he has hidden this video after all.
If this is a mistake for you. then you can assume that mistake happens. Its not about being stupid or not. He was just trying to help some people. You are red therefore you dont need solutions for qualification round. But if someone gives you solution for round 3 or world finals you will happily and greedily take it. you understand na what i am saying. priority changes with situation.
That's even more ridiculous. If someone gave me a solution for such a problem, I would report them and call them a cheater. If you want to be better by cheating or being unfair, then you should probably reconsider your decisions.
GCJ is more famous than CF (it has Google in its name) so there is a bigger percentage of beginners who participate in GCJ.
The "allowed to share information" rule and the 24 hour time period strongly suggests that this qualification round does not have the same competitiveness as the other rounds (in GCJ or on CF). This is a big difference between Div. 3 rounds and this qualification round.
Rules for div 3 say that discussion during the contest is not allowed, why would you even make this analogy.
how so orz?
They look at the scoreboard and realize that they are at the bottom. They might think "Am I too dumb for this?" and just ragequit and forget about CP even before the round ends, versus if they had seen the solutionThis can happen for any contest on Codeforces as well. Will you post the solutions for that too?
No, because the rules for Codeforces strictly prohibits sharing ideas during contests, whereas it was unclear for this qualification round (take into account that I missed the FAQ).
I agree. But posting solutions during the contest kills the purpose of problem solving.
Just 20 minutes before, I would disagree with you. But now I am getting so many messages asking me for the code :|
I was intending for people to learn and try to understand the solutions, not just to copy the code. It seems that a lot of people do not have the spirit of learning. I was too naive about this; hopefully, I can be forgiven.
I will just argue that you're decreasing "the achievement of solving problems in a contest" for people who use a video, and possibly frustrating those who didn't know about such a video during a round and learn about it later.
Allowed to share information doesn't mean "solve it for me". Discussing something in a video should be fine, showing people exactly how it's done is pretty much solving it for them.
I don't see how your thought experiment justifies posting solutions during the round. What will change if the same beginner will watch your video a day later?
I feel very sorry for those who have not followed the youtube channel and failed the round.
It feels like a publicity stunt to increase viewers in your Youtube Channel. :D
I think GCJ allows this in qualification round is to allow streaming, and when pros stream, people will likely notice and may find GCJ interesting and they will join, like how it's been happening with gaming
otherwise there's really no point in letting people discuss, really, as OP said, it goes against the spirit of CP
That kinda has the same problem, especially since streamers often have recordings of their past streams. Rather, the point of letting people discuss is that when you're a total noob who has trouble writing much beyond Hello World, you can ask a more experienced friend.
I think all moral and formal sides of the question are already discussed, I just wanna say that youtube has a schedule functionality: one can upload a video and set a time when it becomes visible (or visible by a link), until then it'll stay hidden (tmwilliamlin168 fyi)
There is a contest for beginners Google KickStart. Why would you dragging them to GCJ (the most prestigious content) even by providing solutions.
"Question" and "answer". Indian detected. Btw, you are right.