Check the links:- regional online qualifications , GCJ 2009 WF
While only 4 out of 25 world finalists were able to solve this problem in GCJ world final 2009, almost 100 teams solved it in an online qualification round of a regional.
Its quite obvious that most of the teams have directly submitted the codes from link
I have heard that there is a great filtering mechanism in place for selecting questions for such prestigious contests, but then I wonder how this question made it to the final list of questions. I think the organizers owe an explanation.
Yeah…!! They do, don’t they…!! I sincerely agree with you. Many good teams, might have actually learnt the algorithm and tried to solve it. Their hardwork would just be overshadowed completely… I think the ICPCKGP moderators should run a plagiarism check on all codes of the contestants in google code jam finals as well as the editorialist’s code. I think around 50% of teams would be disqualified…!!
The first question should be removed and the results should be recalculated on the basis of other 4 questions only. I believe that if teams are disqualified for cheating from codejam question, then at least 50 teams among top 100 will get disqualified.
My team ranked 1. My team name is one_last_time. I copied the solution of question 1 from ZhukovDmitry’s solution and modified it to suit the current question and also changed the variable names. I believe that if there is a question whose solution is directly available online, then it is a fault on the part of problem setter and tester. I have not discussed with anyone or shared code with anyone. I collected it independently from the internet with the help of google. I may have done a mistake, but the mistake was bigger from the part of the setters.
What is this !!!we had taken two hour to solve first question and ultimately could not find the appropriate logic for that question .,after ending of the contest some has solved that question to whom i know ,when i asked them how u did that,.they said directly it is the same question from google code jam. So what is the meaning of keeping this type of question in reputed contest like ACM ICPC ,to make some one feel lucky and some to feel demolarized. So this question should not be counted in ranking because many of them has just copied from online source.
Simply recalculating rankings after removing this question will not be fair as there would be teams who have solved their third question after this one. They will unfairly have a time disadvantage. I suggest that in case the question is getting removed, for the teams who solved this question as their second question, the time should be readjusted to exclude the time taken for solving this question.
According to the rule,
“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.”
Firstly, If anybody has used the code, they cannot be disqualified.
Secondly, giving this question is setter’s fault, not ours. Removing this question will be unfair because:
There are some teams,who did this question by themselves and got time advantage after doing this question. Removing it would cause lower rank, not fair.
It is the responsibility of the setter and the tester that solutions of problems are not readily available on the internet. Regarding the problem, even a slight change like the "smallest perimeter of triangle which should be isosceles/ right angled " would have prevented teams from directly copying the solution given in that link…
Calculating ranks after removing the question would be unfair to the teams who solved it by themselves or people who have solved the problem earlier… Checking for plagiarism isn’t convincingly fair also, as one can easily modify the solution by changing variable names, changing loops , and other things which may make it look like it isn’t copied…
So in my opinion the best solution is to reschedule the contest with a fresh set of problems( tested properly ) if it is feasible for the codechef team and the icpc kharagpur team. I don’t think any deserving team will disagree…
Now that the contest will be rehosted what about the teams which where in top 100 and had not attempted that question cause it is not fair for them to again sit in the competition and prove that they deserve a place in the top 100. There should be a special procedure so that they get the benefit of their performance in the 1st round.
Anyway, most teams would have modified their code suitably. The rules state that if the algorithm is same and the variables, etc are not the same, then the code will not be considered plagiarised. However, this is just my interpretation.
@dpraveen - There are only about 100 submissions and 4 GCJ codes. So, about 10K comparisons will have to be made.
The second most submitted problem also required the standard problem of counting inversions in O(nlogn), plagiarism check should be done for that as well.
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.
How could removing this problem be fair to teams who invested all the time in this question instead of the last two, seeing the number of accepted submissions for this problem, and who were actually able to come up with an original solution by themselves, instead of directly googling for the code.
I agree that removing this problem won’t be fair to them. But not removing this won’t be fair to the contest as a whole. So, there must b a better solution.
There are some teams, who did this question by themselves and got time advantage after doing this question. Removing it would cause lower rank, not fair.
Considering the fact in the finals of Google Code Jam only 4 out of 25 were able to solve it, it is highly unlikely that teams could have thought about it independently except the top 5-10 teams. Comeon, the finalists are legends and when 21 cant solve I dont believe even 30 teams in India could have solved it on their own .