To keep itself relevant, Codechef must conduct only short contests now

Codechef as a platform for competitive programming is becoming more a platform for people to cheat and plagiarise codes during long challenges and then boast off their ratings as a reflection of their hard-work.
Also, many self reliant competitive programmers would not consider your cc ratings as a reflection of your knowledge, rather they would go for codeforces.

I think admin knows whats been happening lately over a few months we have seen creation of multiple telegram and whatsapp groups for discussion of long challenge problems.

I think to overcome this , Codechef should either increase the difficulty of problems in long challenge from 3-4 problem in Div2 atleast, to still keep the competition relevant.

Also if multiple short contests like codeforces is conducted, we would learn a lot and be interested in giving contests on Codechef.

Today I think Codechef is irrelevant.

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Completely agrees with you. People are even selling the solutions for all problems just for some hundred bucks.

I did 4 problems in long challenge this time back and in just last 4 days my rank went from 1000 to 4500 (It never happened before)

Now-a-days, there are more and more frequent ACs submissions in last 2-3 days of long contest which affect the ranks a lot who solved honestly in starting days.

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You can even see some people getting compilation error in their first submission and getting AC in next submission. I’m talking about Challenge problem in div 2, and that is the case with my college only… I’m sad to see Codechef going down like this. Spoils my mood…

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Long challenge is the only reason I’m on Codechef, and I’m careless of the ratings. The feel is a very different from short contest and that’s the only way for some to do any CP at all due to normal everyday time constrains. If you’re doing this only for reputation, you can stop doing it.

I understand the problem of cheating, but the same argument can be applied to shorter contests. The difficulties of long challenge, however, fluctuate a lot between months. Since I’m not doing it to prepare for any serious contest, I don’t mind having long challenges as is.

In shorts, it’s still very relevant for older people like us and we would love to have it as a monthly entertainment. More competitive younglings can just compete elsewhere. After all, it’s called long challenge (to oneself), not a competition.

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what is the point of long challenge?
suppose someone who is working professional, can’t get exact time for cook off or lunchtime, so, they can solve easily long challenge at any time,

but from student point of view, your point is right, so for that, i would suggest you to also give contests on codeforces.

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Agreed.

I feel the problems are easier this time, or you can say, the problems doesn’t require knowledge of harder DS/algos which many find difficult to even learn. No graph/dp/trees question in first 5-6 problems of Div2. All problems are implementation/intuition based. I struggled with 2-3 questions earlier but this time i solved many more, so I feel your rank getting down isn’t completely depending on Plagiarism. But again, there is no doubt that plagiarism doesn’t happen, it does and we can’t stop those people. We can expect long contest of div 2 to have some DS/Algo based problems which require good knowledge of graph/trees etc.

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I actually even suggested Codechef to separate stars for the three types of Contests. This way no one will be able to just boast their long Ratings

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The solution for Codechef problem chef and the railway stations is shared on stack exchange, and its not about long challenge, those who cheat also do the same in a 3 hour challenge, its about learning and not “RANK”

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This seems the best solution to this problem

Codechef already provides separate ratings for long, cookoff and lunchtime.

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You can’t possibly tell me long challenges aren’t the most fun to do. Tbh I could care less about cheaters. I just assume everyone has done the best to their own ability and if they did better than me, they were probably better than me. Long challenge is where you can actually learn different techniques, rather than just quickly implement something you already know, try different approaches and learn to think in new ways. I have learnt almost everything i know in the three long challenges I’ve given. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on all 3. It incentivises you to read about differnent techniques, which you wouldn’t find in a standard short contest question. Moreover, in a lot of the sums, There is much to be explored with a lot of different properties you find while trying it out. I don’t think i would have put that much effort on an unrated contest, would I?
To me, my long challenge ratings are most important because that’s where you actually need to spend some time to figure out unconventional methods to solve questions.

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Well, in long challenge you get 10 days to cheat as opposed to 3 hrs in short contests. So its easier to ask on some platform and wait for a reply or make groups and ask for ideas.

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Codechef already has 3 ratings. The main rating should be based on only lunch time and cook-off contests or give less weightage to long contest ratings.

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Well long challenge’ isnot competitive anymore. Plus in the industry you would know that, interviews are just like short contests as well. I think you haven’t realised it well.

Yes exactly what I meant .

I suggest you to do codeforces, you’ll actually realise where you actually stand. Plus won’t take much of your time like 2 hours a day, that much time a professional spends on coffee break every two days at job

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As mentioned, I’m careless about where I stand or any kind of competitiveness. It’s just for pure fun. In the last year long div 2 is full of math/puzzle kind of problems (as @ashukr97 mentioned), which are fun to solve but could barely validate anything, which your point is. I used to be a student with a CP dream like many here, and now it’s just for the nostalgia.

It’s quite difficult for many of us to dedicate a whole 3 hours at midnight on anything that we’re not aiming to get, and for me, it’s CP. But in 10 days I can be arranging 30 minutes every now and then and that’s completely fine.

If the problem is the cheaters, then we need to try to solve it, not to blame the format. I agree that having separate ratings (or no ratings at all) for long challenge might help. CP is about skills, and something one does in 10 days does not prove anything other than dedication. The ranking during contest can be kept to maintain the fun, but the rating system is seemingly misunderstood and abused by some and thus should be reconsidered.

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I agree there are issues. But, Long challenge is designed to encourage users to learn new concepts & help beginners to get started. So, making 3-5 questions hard doesn’t make much sense.

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Can you send list of users who are buying?
I will sell next time. My motivation will pump up by 1000% if I get money by selling.

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