plagiarism: copying public code.

Is copying of code which is publicly available, with proper citation is considered plagiarism in live contest?
If two people copied code from same source it will be flagged.

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Good question. Though I am not sure what exact procedure codechef admin follows but I think they use MOSS as tool. Once they find similarity above certain level [ not sure what is that level ] they message/email each of the person involved. Result is case by case after that. Citation won’t help I think but again not completely sure. I normally change my code explicitly because of below case.

Similar case happened when I and my friend both used the same site or public code for a function. It was a small problem so match was near complete because of that function. Both faced penalty. I accepted the penalty and moved on.
I think there is another post somewhere discussing about it earlier this month.
Just wanted to share my thoughts and case if it helps.
Peace.

@vishfrnds Actually the problems on codechef are fresh most of the times, so most of the time you can’t copy a public code.

@varunvyas I think there is some play round which codechef performs with the MOSS tool or either they are using something else. The above statement is said taking care of the questions which need Boolean answer or quite simple answer like checking for multiple of 5 or not or something like that. In those cases everyone will be checking if the number of 5 or not and print certain outputs according to this condition. So either they turn MOSS off for such questions or they don’t use it.

@vishfrnds It depends. The conditions which need to be fulfilled for not being considered as cheating are:

  • The reference in form of link is given from wherever you have copied.
  • The published date of that link shall be earlier than the contest start date.

I hope it helps. :slight_smile:

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Hey all, as per our Code Of Conduct. “Taking help or using a third party code is not bad. Passing it off as your own is. If you are taking your code from some other source, it is expected that you give the due attribution to the source in your code. It is kind of mandatory.”

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Though questions are new but they often use general algorithms with lengthy codes (especially long contest) which are available in cheatsheets of ICPC.