Hi! This post is to address a sincere issue that has been going on for many days, and has aggravated to a huge extent recently.
Yes, it’s about cheating in CC Longs.
This post is specifically addressed to those people who believe cheating to climb a few ranks is actually beneficial to them.
CC Long Challenges are one of the most unique formats of competitive programming contests. There are quite a few advantages in participating in CC longs, and the largest of them being is that they allow the scope of learning about the techniques required to solve a problem and implement them, IN CONTEST. No other contest format allows you the scope of learning about a particular technique, coming back, implementing it, and getting an AC in contest. In short contests of 2-3 hours, you only learn from the editorials, AFTER CONTEST.
Sadly, many people exploit the advantages and opportunities given to them by the long contest, by CHEATING. Also, for those who don’t understand what is cheating, here comes your explanation:
ASKING FOR CODES OF CONTEST PROBLEMS IS CHEATING
ASKING FOR HINTS/SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE A PROBLEM IS FROM OTHER PARTICIPANTS IS CHEATING
ASKING YOUR COLLEGE FRIENDS FOR SOLUTIONS IS CHEATING
CREATING WHATSAPP GROUPS AND DISCUSSING PROBLEMS IS CHEATING
OFFERING TO PAY PEOPLE FOR THE SOLUTION IS CHEATING
and so on… The thing is that, if you cheat, you may get some temporary boosts in your rating, but you WON’T LEARN. There is this immense feeling of satisfaction that is accompanied by a genuine AC. One that you have worked hard for days on end, and have ACHIEVED on your own. That AC that makes you fall in love with cp all over again. The immense morale boost that is accompanied by the AC makes you feel stronger, and ready to solve more problems. It makes you happy. 
But… Cheaters don’t get them. Even if that AC is accompanied by the tiniest amount of impurities, it doesn’t give that sense of satisfaction… It simply doesn’t. You may become 3 star, 4 star, 5 star, 6 star after those impure AC-s, but you won’t get the feel of cp. That genuine feeling that makes you solve problems, even if there is a Madrid-Barca match, even if there is an India-Pakistan T20, even if you have a date with your girlfriend. All that it gives, is a bad feeling of guilt. All that it does is worsens the already worse name of Indian competitive programmers.
Hence, it is my ernest request to you guys, is that MAINTAIN THE ETHICS DURING A CONTEST. Don’t spoil it by unwanted impurities. Get to experience the greatest feeling of satisfaction in the world, (getting an AC, obviously). Experience the world of competitive programming.
So that one day, when you’ll look back at your rating graphs, at your cp accounts, you will know that it was worth it. Ratings will come and go, they’re meant to fluctuate. All that matters is the experience garnered from all the hard work that you put in. Improving IS hard, but once you love the hard work, it doesn’t seem hard anymore. And when your girlfriend dumps you, you won’t have regrets as, “Meh, I spent time on something much better than you”.
Regards,
Hungry Hawk
hope for some change bro
Wow this felt good
The thing is ratings will fluctuate that’s how you know it’s real. I have been screwing up all my recent cf contests and ratings, but it’s alright to fail at times, probablity for a good round increase with each bad round 
Hey, man. I just discuss some problem with my friend. He is a beginner like me.
But we spent together about 1h 30m and after thinking this period of time we did solve the problem. We just help each other and enjoy our partnership. now please just clarify that Is it was cheating? In my opinion it is just a discussion among two beginners. But what is CodeChef opinion? Please ensure me.
@admin
The safest thing would be to do that for problems from the practice section.
I have a sibling who’s 10 y/o (complete beginner) and he solves all problems alone. He’s just able to solve 2-3 Problems from Long Challenge at maximum. But he’s happy and low key proud for the rest of duration. Now there are many such kids who are unable to solve lots of problems but they do it honestly.
It pisses me off at times because it’s unfair to them and many others, but oh well 
I still think the concept of long challenges is amazing, but unfortunately exploited to no end 
Are you sure it exploited to no end?
Many beginners who are new to competitive programming have fun by this long contest.
Because, there are lot of time to think about these problem.
And thinking about these problem facing on your computer IDE, I think it is the best thing i know. Sometimes we fail to solve the problem, but thinking for solving this problem it is good enough. I submitted many answer in my short coding history, but only 20% of this i got the answer accepted. The 80% of time i got WA, TLE, RE etc.
yes.
Please describe it. I should know the reason.
Totally agree with @anon33030125
I want to give thousand likes to this post.
As stated by @anon73162591 one or two bad contest are sign that something big is on way.
But this thing cheater will don’t understand ,no one wants their rating to fall but this not means to do cheating.
You are in exam hall you go to your friend who also don’t know what to write ,you guys discuss for 10 minutes and it is just a talk between two beginner then you both come to your seperate place and start writing answer again.
If this is cheating 
?
Then I hope you got your answer .
Thanks for clarifying this. Actually, I am new here and I didn’t know.
I will mind it next time. I didn’t know the rules.
You are right @winnerfool
If someone knows the fun of coding, they will not cheat.
Why do they care about the rating?
what will happen if anyone rating fall?
Nothing happen when your rating fall.
It depends on how you take this things.For me if my rating will fall I will smile and start preparing hard for next contest.
Any person who loves CP never think too much about rating.
Many people do CP for their resume .They just want some badge of 3 or 4 star .They don’t enjoy CP nor they will. And 99.9% of cheaters belong to this category.
Hi! CC Longs are all about the learning experience gained. For example, there is a problem in a Challenge, given that you are supposed to find the sum over ranges of a dynamically updated array. So, if you are a beginner, what do you do? You try out the obvious O(n^2) solution. What? Time Limit Exceeded? Maybe you need a more efficient solution then. You Google. You find some random results. You see, ok, there is this thing called segment tree. Lemme learn about it. You learn about segment trees, come back, implement it… And holy sh**, it’s an AC! You start to dance in front of your PC out of a sense of accomplishment.
Let’s see how it’s done otherwise. You know a college friend, maybe someone who is of your level, or maybe more experienced in cp. You beg him/her to give some hints. He tells "try segment trees, they do it in O(n log n)". You google about segment trees. You learn. You get an AC. But you don’t get the joy, as he helped you. You DID NOT GIVE YOUR 100% behind that problem.
Yeah, there is a very thin line which divides cheating on long challenges with learning about topics. In the first case, you would NEVER forget what you learnt, because it was YOUR hard work. In the second case, you just might. The thin line that divides cheating and learning, as said by a CC admin on a quora answer, and I quote “is the spirit of learning”. (Sorry for any misquotes :p).
I really liked your thoughts
I totally agree with you @anon33030125.
That green AC Is seriously worth the efforts!!
However, Some people don’t like to experience it…
Brilliantly written. Must commend your writing skills. Points are clear and concise too!
last line motivated as hell… now this is called sakht coder 
wow , people pay others to submit for them? That’s intense