Some of his points were genuine, although put in a harsh way.
Regarding codechef, does the interface even open now?
Well, true, its one of the biggest annoyance I face. Interface, server glitches, technical difficulties, they are really a mood spoiler. But as long as those guys are working hard to correct them, I think we should co-operate. Everyone is a human and we arent in their shoes to exactly judge how they are doing.
Regarding his point of “low quality problems in contests”.
I understand his concern. Yes, he is right when he claims that problems from research paper are boring, since most of the times the mathematics they need are way higher than what any CS student will ever need/require in his life. If asked mathematics is TOO high, then solving the question doesnt depend on how smart/logical you are, it depends on if you have a MSc Math degree or if you have some great googling skills.
His point, to put in other words, was -
“Just because its a 10 day contest does NOT mean that throwing any random question from research paper is acceptable.”
And its very much right. Hard questions should have some beauty, some concepts. When it boils down to who can google this stuff out then the beauty is lost. Check EXPTREE , you will get the point.
Also, I feel that easy problems are being made TOO easy so that more people get the gratification of solving them. I am honestly very much against this kind of spoon-feeding. Look at questions asked in snackdown (from pre-eli rounds), they were really nice. Look at this question from yesterday’s CF round. It is also cakewalk, but its DAMN BEAUTIFUL. Those who saw through the concept were able to get higher points than those who blindly brute forced, since if you realize the concept, then its just a 1 line code.
What I mean to say is, easy Q decide a BIG fun factor of your contest. Ask anybody “Why do you like competitive coding?” and 90% of time he will say “Thats because I love thinking, solving these algorithmic puzzles, and the joy of an AC is inexpressible!”
The easy problems are being reduced to, just brute force, or apply some repetitive concept again and again. I am not complaining, and its OK to have cakewalk problem a brute force. But what I am really missing in contest is, the problem which makes me think my wits off. See Palindromic Game from August long. Isnt it a nice puzzle, especially for newbies, where you HAVE to think and observe. Where your logical thinking is tested along with some coding skills? Look at Beautiful Array question. So beautiful, you HAVE to think. I prefer these type of questions any day over some question like "If frequency of any element A in array is equal to frequency of any other element B, print “Good Array” else print “Bad Array” ". Think for a moment, this question is also “Easy/Simple”, but its not beautiful. It needs a bit more moulding, shaping to be made a good engaging question.
Honestly, I feel even top coders will love the contest if easy problems are thought provoking and engaging instead of just implementing brute force in a clever way. Easy problems being too easy is the cause why people complain about “Difficulty gaps”.
Aside from that, we do get to see some REAL GOOD problems as well, and I am thankful to those setters who spend their time thinking over and over for such problems. Really, hats off to them!!
Regarding last point of indians. Boy, it triggered me.
Whether you people LIKE IT OR NOT, he HAS a point.
So many people mail me asking for hints, (they stopped now since I started giving 10 day suspension + disqualification to all of them). Whats worse is, so many people would want to connect to you just for their own selfish reasons. I dont accept most people’s friend request. Why? Because they treat me as “Now I can contact him anytime I like and get my doubts clarified”. Already blocked those guys tbh.
When I accept someone’s request, I expect that this guy is interested in being friend with me, someone with whom I can make some nice conversations, share my insecurities, soothe my lonliness, vent out my sadness/frustration. Somebody who I will remember with a smile.
Apparently no, people are here just to use you, harsh fact, but true. And leave that aside, saying a basic thank you is also missing in many people. Yeah, only get back to me if that didnt help, dont bother thanking me, I am a fricking machine whose gonna help you anyway, right?
Sorry, I stopped helping such people long back either. My time is way more precious than that. But I am happy that at least I got to know some great guys, whom I can gladly count in on friends. Thats the only reason why I am still open, perhaps I will get to meet more such awesome people. Dont mean to offend anyone, but one gets really sad when he realizes that people will message him only when they are stuck, and treat him as invisible otherwise.
And regarding community, I am sorry for saying this, but Indian community has many, MANY things wrong. Just take discuss community for an example.
You people complain this is wrong, that is wrong, but do you know why its wrong in first place? Besides some inactivity from admin, the root reason is because YOU ENCOURAGED IT.
For God’s sake! DISCUSS IS A PROFESSIONAL FORUM WHERE PEOPLE COME TO ASK DOUBTS OR MUTUALLY INCREASE THEIR CODING SKILLS. KEEP IT FREE FROM YOUR SOAP-OPERA DRAMA!!
Do you know whats really wrong with your thinking?
You feel taht one guy throwing mud at IIT_Bombay, or anyone giving sarcastic comments against them deserve 10+ upvotes while its OK for some genuine contributor not even getting a thank you, leave aside his deserved karma, for helping him figure out a missing test case or bug.
To all the 24 people who brainlessly threw upvotes at the question, let me ask one thing, “Why do you think him creating a question and throwing mud at some institute is a “Contribution” which deserves to be rewarded?”
He could have mailed the mods or @admin as well. I can understand if this happened earlier and one said “Admins take too much time to reply.” True, they do. OK. But now we are here, or and atleast I have given out my email for you guys to reach to me.
I am not going to entertain any justification on why that thread should be at discuss henceforth. You guys can always reach out to me.
Back to the question, yeah, tell me, “Why do you think he deserves to be in top contributor for pointing out something which everyone else knew as well?” (Especially when all he did was mud throwing and defamation?)
Does a PROFESSIONAL forum need this type things?
Mails were already sent to @admin, and sooner or later action would be taken. And the REAL reason why a faster action happened was because the mods saw it and reported to @admin, NOT because that thread was on discuss. So that argument is ruled out. Reporting to mods would have been much appreciated.
DO YOU REALIZE HOW DIFFICULT YOUR HABITS MAKE IT TO KEEP THINGS FAIR?
We CANNOT count the karma gained in such way for top contributor list as well. We are already on talks with @admin to cancel/null-out all karma gained in that thread, at least the ones gained from posting sarcastic one liners and mud throwing. We do NOT encourage existence of such things at discuss. So yeah, if you see your karma suddenly down by 150 or 200, know the reason well in advance. 
.
This unfairness and bias of discuss community (which is primarily indian) the reason why not many good 7 star coders are present to answer advanced doubts. Your malpractice (yes, I will count this throwing away upvotes at undeserving things malpractice) is the root cause that discuss isnt growing at the rate it should.
At this point, I frankly dont even care if it seems harsh, because I am now going to tell you the truth.
That question and those sarcastic answers got upvotes because they created DRAMA. Many of LoC questions were also a rip-off of past codechef contest, and IIT bombay’s contest was not the first one to have so many plagiarized problems. Many other contests before that had it as well, and some even at a greater %.
The reason IIT Bombay’s issue grew out of proportion was, because its an esteemed institute, you guys got something to throw mud on, and I feel this is what you people love the most. DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA. IDK but your insatiable drama needs are really something I dont understand.
Are you guys so much drama deprived that you derive JOY/SATISFACTION when you see this type of mud throwing? Well, good news! The new season of Big Boss is already live, please, go watch it and satisfy such needs. KEEP DISCUSS PROFESSIONAL.
People posted multiple one liners, as many as 4 answers, and same people upvoted all 4 because of “Lol. Nice sarcasm.” If we start sending mails and ask for justification of those upvotes, I dont think we’d get any satisfactory response.
On one hand, you people are TOO frugal in giving upvotes. I dont think even 2 out of those 24 people will upvote some guy answer somebody else’s query by giving test cases and explanation because “I already did that Q”, or “Not my problem.”. But yeah, sarcastic reply will get 12+, 24+ upvotes.
When I saw the thread with 10+ upvotes, I was asking myself, “How much further can the community disappoint me?” And well, limits are crossed.
IF YOU PEOPLE WANT TO IMPROVE DISCUSS, WANT IT TO BE FREE FROM DRAMA, THEN FRICKIN CONTRIBUTE TO IT BY DISCOURAGING PEOPLE WHO CAUSE DRAMA INSTEAD OF UPVOTING THEM.
The hypocrisy of community is the real reason why half of my interest in contributing anywhere is already gone. And KNOW, that other people are framing opinion about you, your nation by seeing witnessing such things. At least show that much of decency! Please!
So all annoying people please don’t be annoying? And cheaters too!
