Chef’s 10th Birthday
Hey Cheffers, 
There is always a blast at Chef’s Birthday, as according to the sacred traditions of Codechef. This time, given the pleasure of moderating and mentoring this community for almost 2 years now, I wish to give a small gift as well. In the short, short time that I had, and might have, with you all and Codechef, I would really want to see it going from fantastic to super-duper-fantastic by implementing your suggestions.
Over the past two months, I had been getting feedback on Codechef’s editorials. I appreciate that you guys had been vocal about the inconvenience you were facing, and how much you disliked them - because ultimately they are base over which we can suggest and implement innovations from.
I got lots of messages, from people saying that “I left Codechef long ago only because of editorials.”, “If just we could get editorials, I feel I could have improved much faster” and even citing it as one of Codechef’s “traditions” that “Never provide editorials of hard problems.”
Its about time it changed. No matter if its small, its about time it changed…
Before revealing the curtains from what the changes are, let me provide an insight on why usually editorials are delayed-
- For some personal reason, editorialist is not able to complete them by the deadline, but nonetheless promises to write them and finish them soon.
- For some personal reason, editorialist abandoned the editorials of those hard problems.
- The admin is yet to verify the editorial’s correctness and move them.
There were some other problems as well. Problems not linked, Setter and tester’s solutions not linked &etc.
I am hence, pleased to inform you that after some lengthy discussion with codechef admins, we were successful in bringing forth these changes to the editorial system with immediate effect since March Long-
- The responsibility of keeping track of editorials is now shared by @admin and us. Usually it is the responsibility of contest admin to manage entire thing, but as soon as one contest ends, he has to start preparing for another. Hence, I proposed that this responsibility should be shared by the Head admins. We will keep a track of editorials which were abandoned. For these editorials, the setter’s notes, setter & tester’s solution will be immediately released once the contest is over. We will then start hunting for some other trusted editorialist who feels he can complete the editorial. In case all measures back fire, we will pass the editorial to community hoping that someone (after reading the setter’s notes/solutions which were made public) would step up and volunteer. And yes, the person will be paid for that editorial. This step is explicitly aimed to stop the “tradition” that Codechef
4. Never provide editorials of hard problems.In this regard, I’d like to request the community to extend a helping hand where ever it can. - We have made it mandatory with immediate effect for editorialist to copy-paste setter and tester’s solution in the editorial. This step would be followed since March Long itself. For those who had been here for a while to see one of my editorials, it’d be just like that. For others, you can refer to here to see how it’d look.
- During Snackdown and ICPC, codechef @admin is overloaded with work already. Hence it was proposed to give an exception to normal process during this period. The editorialist will be given privilege to himself move/publish the editorials after contest - once verification from contest admin is over. This is aimed to reduce/mitigate/remove any unnecessary delay in moving of editorial once they are written.
- Another step of verifying that editorials are linked to problem page is added. This will usually take place a few days after contest has ended.
- In case the editorial is delayed, but not abandoned, the setter’s solution and notes will be made public as well.
We are also taking statistics of last years editorials and will see to it their editorials are finished.
Lastly, I want to again thank ALL of the people who bothered to give me feedback over the process. Ultimately my arguments are based only and only on your suggestions. A shout-out to all of them who demonstrated their love for codechef by providing valuable feedback to me over Mails, Facebook, Watsapp or even Codeforces messages! ( 
) This post is dedicated to just you guys, and I would want you to know, that the Chef is listening.
great !!