What if our division for contest is decided by our rating in that contest. For example, if I am in division 2 in cook-off then I should only be allowed to participate in division 2 in cook offs. I believe that will give our community much more room to improve.
Please look into it and tell your views on it.
@admin
18 Likes
seems sensible to me.
1 Like
Can anyone tell me how combined/overall rating is calculated?
Thanks.
Makes sense. Lunchtimes are also comparatively easier than cook-off. So splitting the division for all the three contests based on contest rating makes so much sense.
4 Likes
good suggestion!!!
As far as the advantages of this are concerned I don’t see any advantage except a ton of 4
*s want to participate in div2 and jump to 5* in overall rating because they feel they cant perform well in div1 and neither want to improve by participating in div1s.
It gets worse - it’s possible to get red with only six good performances (example). Imagine how much more of a joke CodeChef rating would be with the suggested system, when someone can get to red just by winning Div. 2’s
Well… reaching high colors with only a few contests is probably fine, that just means rating converges quickly. The issue would be reaching red without doing a single Div. 1. It’s not too hard for someone at 6-star (maybe 5, too?) level to place top 10 or 5 in the Div. 2 contests they do (and even win a few), and if they’re allowed six free Div. 2 contests, their “real” rating (based on skill, as in, where it would be without the suggestion) would be much lower than the rating they’re given, making the whole CC rating system less meaningful (and, to support your other point, less credible for foreign users)
It also encourages making alt accounts - the rating system is more harsh toward Div. 1 users than Div. 2, and it would be easier to just make a new account and farm Div. 2’s for rating
I don’t think it’s a good idea for each contest, but maybe it’s not so bad having a different rating for long contest (was that the case some time ago?). My thoughts are not related to the much-debated topic of cheating, but rather to the fact that short and long contests are a completely different type of competition. The skills, knowledge, patience and many others aptitudes required are different and it might not be a bad idea for the rating to try to reflect that.
I have not thought about this deeply, so there’s may exists disadventages I don’t imagine. What do you think @aryanc403?
If a person has participated in his splitted divisions then there is no point in increasing overall rating just increase the rating of his (long, lunchtime, cookoff) section, then just calculate his overall rating by some other formula.
Unpopular opinion-
All the problems of ratings on codechef is only because of 2 main reasons-
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People participate in LONGs , cheat , get there rating increased and stop participating. And imo this problem is not only with div2 anymore, it is in div1 as well. I wrote this because your idea of separate rating for each type of contest aligns with this.
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As @aryanc403 pointed out, many high rated coders don’t want to participate and hence there is no choice but to make 1800 as the lower bound of div1.
I don’t think we can do much about point 2, something appealing must be introduced for this and also short contests need to improve (which I believe are improving, atleast last 4 were fine except for the proof of GOLDMINE problem)
Coming to point 1
I certainly believe one motivation for cheating comes from divisions, everybody wants to be in div1. While I am not in the favour of abolishing divisions I believe there should be a separate rating for LONG challenges and SHORT challenges and there should be no overall rating. There have also been talks of making LONGs unrated or reducing the number of days but a lot of community members do not want that due to various reasons, so I think this is the best choice.
And then the person can participate in the contest depending on his rating in SHORT and LONG challenges.
People can (or they still do) cheat in SHORT contests too but I don’t think rating gains would be too high for them.
3 Likes
This still happens, most of the people still pick LONGs and leave the SHORT contests.
Even this still happens, you must be knowing people posting comments on CF like never trust a codechef LONG specialist etc.
The sole reason is that LONGs are losing credibility because of cheating. The main motive behind that is overall rating increasing. This in turn also motivates in ignoring the SHORT contests.
If there is no overall rating, I guess cheating would reduce and people will start acknowledging LONGs once again.
2 Likes