There was a blunder mistake in test data of 3rd problem which costed hours of time debugging the code to many participants. So, my question is will it be rated??
If this had happened on CF I am sure the round would had been made unrated atleast for users who were really affected by the issue(it can be easily identified by their submissions).
So, What will happen here ???
âWe apologize profusely for the issue in RAINBOWâs testdata. We are looking into ways in which we can keep the contest rated as well as fair. We will let you know by tomorrow.â
They said this in the contest page.
There are few reasons to be unrated as well as rated.
unrated - It wasted hours of debugging
rated - they canât just make it unrated and waste the effort of those who worked hard in the contest. Secondly, if they were to make it unrated, they should march long challenge unrated at first because it had serious cheating.
I would support it being rated because even though it wasted my lots of time for WAs in the problem 3, I got a great rank. I never got such a good rank.
There would be many like this for whom the contest was superb but just because their time was wasted the contest should not be called unrated.
We regret to inform that the March Cook-Off will be unrated. The issue with the testdata in RAINBOW had affected a significant number of the participants, and we feel that this is the least unfair way forward. We are taking steps to make sure that such situations are avoided in the future.
Want to know whether COOK80 be considered for 12 month laddu award or not?
Coders need to develop the optimal approach. They cannot be âStuckâ with one Q. I mean, treat it like Math exam. If we arenât able to figure answer of a Math problem, we leave it and finish rest of paper first. Same approach must be followed here. I highly agree with your stand.
Yes you are absolutely correct. And also if you check my submissions u will notice that mine about 1 hr was wasted because of this.
@mathecodician congrats on your performance I am not asking to make it unrated for all what i am asking is to, atleast give a choice to those who lost valuable time due to the problem.Many of contestants who lost valuable debugging this could have solved 4th problem.
@vijju123 cp contests are very different than exams I mean you canât compare apples to oranges in exam you donât know what you have written is correct or not but in contest you know that. In contest you very rarely leave a easy question (just bcz you are getting wa bcz of some camel case 
)
@killjee the thing is the top performers earning rated through the ones who did not perform well. Because they relatively did well and have a better rank. This thing wonât be fair for them. Consider @rajat1603 even though he lost his time because of p3 he still came 1st. see how unfair it will be to him.
I slightly disagree dear. The problem was nowhere rated âeasyâ during contest. This habit should be developed, to try solve as many Q as you can instead of getting stuck on one. Cause its not a long contest, the time constraint has to be respected. If youâre planning to boast your rating, I wont advise you getting stuck on a Q for more than 35 min.
As for in exam we donât know what we wrote is correct or not, take a Q of some âderivationâ as example. Those were the real time-wasters if you get stuck. Thatâs why esp. said Math exam, where one sometimes struggles to find tricks to proceed.
@vijju man u r so wrong always attempt a question which u can solve during contest and upsolve harder ones after contest and there is no level during contest but if u have even little mind u can easily identify easy problems
I am not wrong, youâre viewing things with different PoV. When I said that âif your purpose is to boast your ratingsâ, I meant that âIf youâre an expert who wishes to top the leaderboard.â In that case getting stuck on a Q for more than 40 min in a 2.5 hr contest isnât an option dear. For beginners, its a different case tho, since they already feel that âI cant solve all Q, so will solve the 1-3 Q which are easyâ. Then sticking might pay off, but I still advise to hunt down all easy ones first.
@vijju its not about ratings its about internal satisfaction of doing well and giving your 100%.
One thing which I can understand from your comments is that you have very little experience of competitve programming as, you support loosing your time in reading all the question.
Lets suppose you start reading all the questions in an ICPC regionals instead of debugging your almost correct code you will most probably end up with fucking up the whole contest if you are not a top coder.As, last of the problems are for deciding winners and not to be just read and do some hit and trial.
@mathecodician can you please read my comment or my question once more. As, you are not able to get my point what I am saying is " Make This Round Unrated For Them Who Are Affected By This Mishap On Their Wish"
Why so many downvotes. I just gave my point of view.
@killjee, well, âyou support loosing your time in reading all the question.â tell me which top coder doesnât read the Q before attempting it? I am talking about people who solve all problems in Long and Cook-offs.
And lol, regarding rest of your points I donât have anything to say, except that I stick to my PoV. I saw yours, I gave mine and neither of us are convinced by each others, so its better to rest the case instead of going on and throwing insults at each other. I bring this argument to an end.
My personal experience: I started with ROBOTG,it was giving me correct output for almost every test case I came up with. But it kept on giving me WA whenever I submitted. I left the Q and went on to solve another easy Q, and got that correct in 15 min. And that ROBOTG Q took me 3 HOURS AFTER contest to finally debug and get correct. According to your plan, had I been stuck debugging the ROBOTG code which I felt was âalmost correctâ then I was done for
Everyone as his/her own strategies. You cannot ridicule my strategy and say its âless experiencedâ just because you fail to appreciate it
any update from their side?
No laddus ?
Laddus will be given as usual.