Ratings over Learning?

general
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Well, codechef aimed to bring a renaissance in the Indian Competitive Programming. It has done it to a
certain extent. Codechef has been trying hard. Codechef visits school/colleges reimburse the students
for ICPC, it even has a “Go For Gold Program”. Most of us know that codechef hosts three contest every
month, namely
Long (lasting 10 days), Cook-off (ICPC style contest), Lunchtime (IOI style contest).

Now, let’s come to the main point!
Codechef though tried hard to bring the renaissance by hosting contests every month, but it also gave air
to some cheaters. Cheaters, I personally think it is a wrong word. These people should be called
thieves. Some participants literally sit on ideone during the live contest like scavengers on a hunt, as
soon as they find a code that fits the sample input or output format of a question in the contest. BAM!!
COPY → Tab Switch → Click on Submit button → PASTE → SUBMIT → AC.
We see these people rising up on the rank list and wonder like these people must be working so hard.
But when I open the code after the contest I find the person is cheating. Some players have been
consistently cheating in short contest and codechef has happily increased their rating, this gave my
heart and my will a blow. What’s the point of doing that toil when you have an easy way?
Well, my brain says it would not do any good to my skills so I refrain myself from doing anything wrong.
But then, these things go unnoticed. Do I want to ask the admin when would these things stop? When
would codechef really do the work it aimed for? In fact, once I read an article on Quora asking, [“Why do a
lot of successful competitive programmers not participate actively on CodeChef but participate often on
sites like TopCoder and Codeforces?”](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-a-lot-of-successful-competitive-
programmers-not-participate-actively-on-CodeChef-but-participate-often-on-sites-like-TopCoder-and-
Codeforces). I felt really bad about what Bohdan Pryshchenko wrote about people of my country. Well,
since the cheaters are solely responsible for the blame, you guys do not catch such entries. Participants gain confidence and they tend to do these things again. Well, here are some links:

Question Name: [Multiple of 3] CodeChef: Practical coding for everyone

Contest Name: January Cook-Off 2018

Solution 1: ii_siddharth

Solution 2: shreycoder123

Question Name: [Chef and Escaping from the Labyrinth]

Contest Name: January Lunchtime 2018

Solution 1: ii_siddharth

Solution 2: gahoi

Well, if this was not enough then old god knows how will you come up with world-class system and
a platform which shall help to create wonderful programmers!

Culprit: codechef.com/users/ii_siddharth

Just reducing the ratings by 1000 or something similar would be like cutting a slack to cheaters like these.
The punishment should be to ban the account straight away.

@admin @vijju123 @ista2000 @kingofnumbers

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Thanks for reporting. They will be added to the list.

From what we all heard last from @admin regarding this, she said that the functionalities required for penalization are under renovation and are still being worked on. So you will need a bit of patience. We all apologize for that.

Rest assured, we guarantee that sooner or later these people will be penalized, and the new system of penalty will have feature of banning accounts for cheating/being-caught-fr-plagiarism X (expected to be 3) number of times.

Hope this addresses your concerns. :slight_smile:

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The topic @worldunique is talking about has already been raised by @triveni in Amateur Authors, Lazy Testers and Jan Challange - 2018 - general - CodeChef Discuss and first of all geeksforgeeks does not have the answer on it, they only have the approaches. If YOU still find any article on Geeksforgeeks or any other portal relevant to the question, it is expected from you to first understand the concept before simply going for the question. Sometimes a question can be solved by more than one approach. But still the code of two people cannot be same. @admin, this case is serious and must be dealt with stiffness.

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Its very sad to see people doing this just to show how cool they are, but the real thing is they know nothing and they should be banned from CodeChef. He is one of the many, just imagine how many people are doing this. Shame on them

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I just saw his profile, he has more compilation error than any other. How can a Yellow coder be so dumb that he dont know how to compile @ii_siddharth " Nakal ke liye bhi akal cahiye "

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Harsh, but true.

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Well this is weird. How has such blatant plagiarism not been detected by Moss ? And how exactly did you get to this particular guy ? I have seen a few people who have been detected by Moss test and their ranks have changed but ratings have not (due to the rating recalculation stuff still in development as @vijju123 once told me), but in case of this guy even ranks haven’t changed, meaning that he wasn’t detected by Moss test. Weird, Weird…

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Using online ide is not a good choice, I cought into plagiarism and CodeChef penalizing me for the crime I didn’t even committed. I got into plagarism with someone I dont even know and my only fault was is that I used online ide.

@mohit_negi did a very good work and cought users like them.

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I gave up many night’s sleep to get to yellow in January long, and it is sad to know that there are users who reach the same level with zero efforts.

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Why do people post any of their code online (Ideone, Pastebin, etc.) DURING a contest? They should just save and execute it on their computer if they want to test the code, and after contest is over, upload it wherever they like in case they would like to save their solutions for later.

Some penalty (small) should also be there for the one whose solution gets copied, since it is not acceptable to post your code publicly during a contest.

EDIT: While systems like Stanford’s MOSS can detect direct copy-paste codes, it is necessary to remember that those who know basic programming also, can take the code and just change the structure of the program a bit (like moving some code over to a function) and get by without getting detected.

I mean to say once a solution is publicly available, there are definitely ways to copy it without getting detected. So, it is necessary to discourage public availability of solutions. Maybe it can begin by improving CodeChef’s own IDE, which is horribly slow, during the contests.

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We need A Wall of Shame kinda concept for CodeChef as well.
Why would anyone use ideone when codechef has its own?
And at the end ratings have no value if you dont have the corresponding knowledge.

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I am penalized for a mistake that I used online compiler. One of my solution of the problem KCON was found by someone and they submitted it.

If codechef want to penalize someone, he/she must be the person who has submitted the code latter. Technically he must be the culprit.

This would be more fair rather than penalizing both the person.

@vijju123 please take this advice into consideration if you find it a better solution. Please reply if there is a flaw in it.

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exactly @codex0196, use sublime-text instead of ideone. And if you really want it online, do cpp.sh and the codechef ide. Codechef’ve made it for us right!

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Oh . Thats a hell lot of discission about what I am being accused of as number of solutons were found similar consequently resulting into a criticism of such an extent. Firstly , alomst every one out here is aware of MOSS. So am I . I would have used a number of methods to prevent it if that is the case.( Modularity, “Signatures”,renaming etc etc that people are using quite often so as to prevent plagiarism detection. No one is dumb out here. Then someone commented about the compilation errors . I have tried solving thats how you get compilation errors in casse you have never got a “compilation error”. All this is consequenty reflecting that I am craving for the ratings and in case you want a statemet "I dont care about the ratings " , be it the rise or be it the fall . Thats just a part of a game . So each and every one who is being upfront about all this . Think Twice before you accuse anyone like this . I would have used all the ways to prevent the detection .But I didnt because I have not done anything that I am being accused of. I am not here to prevent the fall of my ratings or banning of my account as whatsoever is being said about me is a blot on my character and credibility. I reached a level . I dont care if all this falls down as I am capable enough of starting from the scratch and get where I am and where I deserve. As a matter of fact I personally would want my account to be deactivated as all the “critics” are here solely for a discussion about my ratings. So think before accusing someone like this. No one can take away what one is capable of be it the ratings or be it the criticism with an evident lack of substantiality.

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@ii_siddharth, okay little girl, let us start with some stats. You have attempted over 7 live competitions on codechef, out of which, codechef caught you on 2 and the author of this post caught you in the other two. That makes 4/7. Pretty cool huh?

You truly said, no one is dumb out here except you, it’s you who has been caught red handed and are still trying to prove yourself clean. I mean Yeah, we get the point, PASS!.
“Think twice”? We have seen it four times. You’re even more dumb that after knowing codechef applies MOSS, you still cheated. If not, then prove the credibility of this post. According to you billy boy, the other user went 10 minutes ahead of time, hacked into your system, stole the codes of a contest meant for school students preparing for IOI, traveled back in time 10 minutes back and submitted it! Bravo, the other contestant could have caused much harm, but to his evil, he just stole the program. Here’s a little advise for you, think four times before either making typos or cheating in the future, because it just takes a little effort to prove it.
"YOU STILL NEED EVIDENCE"? Are you crazy?

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According to me the first submission should be taken into consideration and the code with same approach submitted later on should be penalized. Well rating is matter of show off and people love to do either by hook or by crook, after all bravo i am such a level coder. College popularity , friends being amazed all the stardom matters buddy. So they prefer rating over learning but ignore the future loss.

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@aryanc403 I don’t agree with you. Atleast it is not the case with long challenge on codechef, hackerrank, hackerearth etc. Here(on codechef) the number of submission do not matter. The thing that matter is your successful submission and it’s time.

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Well, Ideone has the option to make your code private and we can use that after signing up which will secure code from plagiarism :slight_smile:

Happy Coding!

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Yes, this is very true. Unfortunately, many new members of the platform are diminishing the true essence of the platform by such acts.

Considering how competitive the scenario is, it should always be kept in mind that Codechef is just an online platform for testing how better one is at solving problems. There is whole world beyond that, just the rating isn’t a yardstick for the same.

I sincerely hope that such acts are dealt strictly with in the future.

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@ii_siddharth,
all you said is “think before you accuse someone” and some other general stuffs
but you didnt clear the doubt that what happened really
am not holding you as guilty
tell the truth. what happened??
how ur codes are similar??
did you use any online ide?? or shared ur code with someone??