I agree with your last point, rest have not been an issue for me.
I believe time given for long challenges can be decreased. 10 days is a really long time for 5-8 questions. I understand that idea behind long challenge is to give time to beginners to learn the concept and apply but sadly, this is not happening anymore. People have gone to such an extent that they are buying solutions.
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To begin, I don’t think there’s an issue with the goldmine problem, and the general consensus is that the editorial’s proof could be better, but the problem itself is valid. The rating’s been resolved by now, right?
On your points:
- Fair enough. Sometimes I feel like the queue’s ignored me especially because I’ve had 10 minute wait times while other people received their results almost instantly. But we’ve seen the same issues with Codeforces, and they’ve pulled through (there was a minor queue in the most recent div. 3, but it was barely noticeable except for in the beginning). There’s new leadership for CodeChef now, and maybe they’ll become better over time.
- Seeing “Div. 1” and “beginner” in the same sentence is kinda confusing, but I see the point you’re making. There’s a certain mentality of insecurity that often comes with entering Div. 1, and the best way to get over it is to just immerse yourself and keep doing contests. The Div. 1 bound would probably be more appropriate at the 5-star level. But at the same time, how much do you really gain when you’re Div. 1 level from solving the two easiest problems in Div. 2? In the higher division, you get to challenge yourself more and spend time on the tough problems that would really lead to your improvement.
- Personally, checking the ranklist instead of focusing on the problems seems like a bad habit (one that I also have), but you have a good point here that it could just be updated more frequently (or, even better, on the page load).
- This is a matter of preference. I think it’s good that the samples are weak because it forces you to develop the skills to debug for yourself and think of the corner cases. It’s the same argument as CodeChef’s argument for never giving out their test data.
- Good enough pun, but it doesn’t have to do with the actual long challenges
On a more serious note, yes, cheating is definitely an issue. But does it really matter in the end? It’s just rating, and cheaters won’t be able to display the skills implied by their rating in any useful context.
In addition, something that should be said: the comments here that simply dismiss the criticism with the idea that you’re just salty and ranting about things are terrible. Guys, @s1mplegg is bringing up genuinely good points, and this isn’t how our community should handle criticism of the platform.
Your decision to leave CodeChef is your own, and yes, there are definitely issues with the platform. But in my opinion, the platform and the flawed rating system shouldn’t interfere with the (sometimes) nice problem quality we see here. You always have the option to stay, enjoy problem-solving, and just take it easy 
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@galencolin Thanks for the reply.
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I also noticed a visible delay in yesterdays Div3 contest, but it wasn’t too much. And I really hope the new leadership makes changes in Codechef for the better.
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You make a valid point here. One has to get some exposure to higher competition to become better. The only point I was trying to make here was that I felt the learning curve from Div2 to Div1 was rather too steep. I felt real uneasy when I first attempted a Div1 contest. Now after spending time in Div1 (and having even reached 5star which is a big thing for me), I can say that I did learn a lot from Div1 problems.
What my main suggestion in this point was that they should set the rating requirement for Div1 a bit higher (let’s say 1900 or 2000). It is very easy to reach Div1 quickly as of now but it shouldn’t be. I mean it should be atleast at par with the level of a Div1 coder on let’s say Codeforces (as of now, I don’t think they are comparable).
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Most of your points sound like serious bullshit. Weak samples make you better, though CC should put at least explanation of samples, if problem is unreadable and hard to understand. The only reason Codechef feels worse to me than CF and AtCoder is that it organises very little amount of rated short contests. I am with you in opinion about Long challenges, they suck, I don’t like them, none of the prestigious contests follow that format and I don’t know why people care about long contests at all, add to that, cheating.
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You are right, We have to wait for 10-14 long a*s days and sometimes more for just 2 short contests. They really should introduce at-least 1-2 more short contests. This is also a reason why I too have recently moved to CF and Atcoder.
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People care about Long challenge because-
- Remove Long challenge and you will see significantly less 5 stars, 6 stars and 7 stars, just like being master in Cf.
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Have guts to post your comments from original account instead of fake. You can be banned for having multiple accounts.
Also people do post memes on CF and they too get contributions. ( 100s and 1000s of upvotes)
People asking doubts sometimes get negative contribution on CF. At least Codechef isn’t allowing to discourage beginners by downvotes when they are new to the community.
I too agree with this.
Also it doesn’t take 10 mins at all. After Codechef started using clouds, it hardly takes 30sec-2 mins for getting the verdict.
I agree which is still slower than codeforces but Codechef do not have any pretest system. Pretest system does help a lot in reducing the load on the server.
About time taken to upadate rank.
Yes I do agree this can be improved if we compare with CF. But this doesn’t stop you from solving the next question after getting Verdict in one or two mins.
But yes still it can be improved for better user experience.
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Just today I got 35 downvotes for requesting someone if I can join their mashup group (not that person’s fault tho). Codeforces community is very toxic, salty and partial. If you’re a newbie and you ask doubts, you’re gonna get negative contribution. But if you’re in div 1 and post memes, you get 100s of upvotes. I just hate this about codeforces.
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Totally agreed. Few people trutly are ratist on CF.
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I didn’t really have any evidence (or a way to reproduce the bug), so it didn’t seem like there was much I could do about it
I don’t know why you are even arguing over this, people won’t gonna shift their opinions based on ours. If someone feels this way about codechef he has every right to speak about this. Leave whoever wants to leave and stay whoever wants to stay. Its better that before leaving he pointed out the reason why he’s leaving (which Of course so many people are doing these days).
Codechef should really look into the matter of what’s happening in the community.
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Yes, but when you think you are facing this issue, just comment below the problem statement or mention admin on discuss. Reporting can help in resolving the issue.
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Since moving to the cloud checkers, we have had a small percentage of the submissions run for a much longer time than usual (it doesn’t affect the verdict, just that the verdict takes a long time to be displayed) - this is because of some rare deadlocking in the cloud CPUs, which we have been working on figuring out, but not fully successful yet. This is possibly what you observed, @galencolin.
Should hopefully be fixed in a couple of weeks.
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I also think the server is pretty laggy . I recently had to wait about 15 mins in a contest (hosted by some college)
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I was talking about codechef contests. They use cloud servers on their monthly contest. Don’t know about other unrated contests.
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And the irony is even cheaters of LONG CHALLENGE contest are replying.
And i think @s1mplegg have some valid points.
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I haven’t even officially been on codechef for a month and the servers during contests suck so fkn much…It’s one thing if I can’t solve a question but the fact that it took me 30 mins to submit code for 1 question(which was correct)…
I’m just fkn done with codechef!!