Hello Codeforces community!
I'd like to discuss an issue from Codeforces Round 882 (Div. 2) that caught my attention. The problem name, "The Man who became a God".
Codeforces has been an incredible platform for enhancing our skills and engaging in healthy competition. However, the problem name gave me pause. As a Muslim, it directly contradicts and disrespects my core beliefs. Moreover, it may also offend individuals of different faiths. Furthermore, I discovered that some of my friends chose not to participate in the contest upon noticing the problem name (unfortunately, I only noticed it after the contest had ended).
This incident highlights the impact that such names create divisions and discourage people from engaging in the Codeforces community. It is important to remember that Codeforces is a global community with participants from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. As a platform that aims to bring programmers together, it is crucial that we keep an environment where everyone feels respected and valued.
I strongly encourage the Codeforces administration to think about how problem names can affect people, and to create guidelines that promote respect for diverse beliefs.
Thanks for reading! Keep coding and stay awesome!
exactly! leave your beliefs out of this.
I agree with you.
You can't listen to fiction story if there is something not true or doesn't align with what you think? Get over yourself...
Yes.
in the Muslim belief, we have lines that we can't cross, one of them is being respectful when we talk about the entity of god.
the first sentence of "Shahada" is: (There is no god but Allah).
accepting such names or being normal around them contradicts the concept of "Tawheed" which is the core of Islam.
you might not value such a thing in your belief, but being respectful of others' beliefs is essential, don't you think so? :)
Being respectful to others' beliefs to where it prohibits my freedom of expression is very contradictory to my own beliefs...
So your belief is that you can offend anyone in whatever way you like in the name of (freedom of expression)?
Basically, better rephrasing is nothing should be off the table for what one wants to express, even at the cost of offending others. One person might abuse to just be rude, but many progressive ideas considered normal now were once thoughts that offended others, and any limiting that expression may throw away chance of new progressive idea.
But for this problem, it is not even that, just a silly story. If you are offended by such I don't think you can survive in real world where people can speak any of their opinions...
Also, you are just reading someone else's writing, not putting any of your own respect or disrespect into god's name when you read the statement. Does Muslim religion not allow you to read any literature where others have contradictory opinons? I think even those who want to practice strong faith should be reasonable to seeing others ideas and still being able to confirm their own beliefs. I don't have knowledge of Muslim to know what is within bounds of your beliefs, but this quora post makes me think that my idea on this perfectly aligns with Muslim ideas (but maybe it is not knowledgeable/credible people idk).
I am indeed surviving the "real world" that you are referring to by replying to you respectfully without making blanket statements about you :)
(Yes, I am referring to that you are doing so)
There is always a better way to express your opinion without offending others, choosing the easiest way to be argumentative is just too lazy and disrespectful.
and I believe you chose the lazy way, you could have expressed your opinion either to me or to the blog writer without making it sound offensive.
If you can't find the issue in your ways, then I think you should add manners to your "beliefs", or you won't survive the "real" world.
Maybe I could do without saying "Get over yourself", but I do not think anything I commented should be offending or besides that line even rude. I simply stated my beliefs on the matter, I am sorry you are offended by my thoughts.
And please let me know how I could better express exact same opinions without missing details without offending you. I do not personally see way as it would end up containing exact same information.
And this does not reply at all to what I said, to me it feels like you are the one being lazy. If you are going to make reply disagreeing with me, can you tell me why my idea on freedom of speech is inherently wrong?
Let's make a proof by contradiction!
If you are allowed to express yourself with no rules, no limits.
then you can be disrespectful at any time (you are free to express yourself however you like).
but at the same time, you are trying to limit yourself to be respectful to others.
can you see the contradiction here?
what is the solution to this paradox?
a universal measure that we can measure our speech whether it should be spoken or not.
Islam provides such a measure which I am trying to follow as much as I can.
I'd recommend to you to check the "conversation etiquette in Islam"
it isn't that long, but I can't write the entire thing here :)
and about this very particular case, you should not have said the phrase (Get over yourself...)
because it is a personal insult to the blog writer.
Well I am not trying to limit myself from being respectful to others, I am trying to get my ideas across in easy to comprehend way regardless, and think everyone should have access to that as well. So to me, there is no contradiction.
That is just fundamental difference in our priorities.
How come literally offending others by your way of phrasing your opinion is respectful?
and by priorities, do you mean that respect isn't your priority but getting your ideas across in easy to comprehend way regardless of it may lack respect to others?
I don't understand first question, yes to second question.
The first question was a condemning question.
anyways,
if you don't prioritize respecting others, why would you expect respect from any other person?
Do you like being offended by others?
I don't expect anything from others. I just care about gaining/sharing ideas/knowledge and confirming their rational, and can only hope others do too.
That's great, but in the "real" world, people expect respect too.
This is normally the most prior thing for anyone.
And I don't think that this is wrong whatsoever.
So, if you don't wanna be hated by others AND still express your opinions freely, you might consider making your ways of expression better.
I hope you get my point.
I really dont get why you force others to obey your rules , by definition it is the rules you believe in thus your job is to tolerate his rude but accurate voice and continue discussing normally , I think it seems like you already know SuperJ6 is right on this topic but you are just trying to attack from his rude-ness(!) since that is the only thing you got to seem "right" as a muslim who values his teachings(!!!!).
About the question "Does Muslim religion (Islam) not allow you to read any literature where others have contradictory opinions?"
the answer is: Yes, it allows.
but to make it more clear, reading does NOT mean agreeing with what you read.
In Islam, you are demanded to seek knowledge. and ofc you will come around ideas that contradict Islamic beliefs in the way.
take darwin's evolution theory for example.
This won't stop us (as Muslims) from studying it.
Logically, how come we know it contradicts our belief if we hadn't even studied it xd
but we are not here talking about a book or opinions, we are talking about a provocative sentence that touches the core of Muslims' beliefs.
and something I wanna point out about the "opinions".
Let's assume that there is some person called "X" that hates ALLAH, and his reason is that he thinks that Allah is unfair.
This is an opinion.
I don't respect it, but as long as the person "X" does not insult Allah and person "X" is open discuss this, then I have no right to be mad.
It is all about the way you put your opinion, not your opinion itself.
But some opinions are insulting and should not be allowed whatsoever.
for instance, insulting the god entity in someone's belief.
This is not even an opinion, it is just a disrespectful behavior.
(Some people worship anti-entities in other religions which is kind of argumentative and I don't wanna go through this)
I hope that your question had been answered and that my point is clear.
I think everything you said is reasonable, but I will still not agree that some opinions should not be allowed for reasons stated above, as different people will draw different line and I think it is dangerous to let single person/group decide that line. However, I can sympathize with other arguments against this.
To me, a problem statement like the one given is no different scenario than reading another religion's holy text but disagreeing with it (you can pretend problem is describing a religion, even tho it is just a story). I do not understand how situation is different, and based on what you said I therefore do not understand why it should be offending.
Again, our case here is not an opinion that we are trying to prohibit, but a provocative sentence that (just going through it) contradicts the Islamic concept of "Tawheed".
Tawheed itself contradicts what christian believers believe in
I know, what does this have to do with my point?
It means your existence offends Christian people
Should I take that as a threat?
On the other side, In Islam, we respect the freedom of religion.
We are all aware of the existence of people of different beliefs, but here we are talking about an activity that many people around the world participates in. What is the point of having such a statement that prohibits our belief?
If your logic is valid, so why not have problem statements that supports cannibalism, make fun of black people, and/or call all Russians war criminals?
What do you think of that suggestion?
If they don't follow the rules of others' beliefs, it doesn't mean they don't respect it. In fact, many beliefs contradict each other, so if you call it disrespect, it means that whatever you say about it, you disrespect some beliefs. If it's your belief, then follow it and don't care what other say or do.
i totally agree with u
I totally agree with you!
but the case here is that such provocative sentences may result in some harm for some people (for instance Muslims in our case) in their religion.
I am not sure if anyone from any other religion has such a thing too, but for Muslims, anyone knowledgeable enough of his religion will refuse this.
So the best solution is to avoid any religion-related stuff.
This blog intends to raise awareness about this to make the platform available for all people from all religions with no harm to their religion.
We both say the same thing, but you interpret it wrong. Let's say the author felt like naming the problem like that since it's related to the topic of the problem, and it didn't contradict the author's beliefs. Now, if we want to avoid religion-related stuff, we shouldn't think about how the author's belief contradicts with ours; we should simply not care about it. Of course, it'd be less controversial if the problem was named with something else, but you can't really blame the author because maybe their beliefs are completely different, and they didn't think there is something wrong with that title. For example, imagine if using the word "God" is very normal for you, and you use it without thinking that it might not be normal for others. If someone feels very offended by hearing it, it's not normal, is it? They should simply not care how you accidentally express your beliefs and how it contradicts with theirs.
Again, it is beyond offense, it is harming a core concept in Islamic belief.
and as you had mentioned (it'd be less controversial if the problem was named with something else), why do people make it a big deal to respect this Islamic line and insist on "normalizing" this?
You can simply NOT mention any religious entities or concepts in the problem statements.
is that so hard?
I've never said that it wouldn't be better to make it less controversial by not using religious concepts. I've just said it shouldn't be a big deal if authors use it without thinking much of it. Like imagine in your problem story, you want something to happen that can only be done by God according to your beliefs. You use it and don't think much of it. In my opinion, it's not normal to make a big deal out of it, and that's what I've been saying and explaining in the previous messages. You just simply should not care how their beliefs contradict with yours.
My religion demands me to care. And if I will choose between the platform and my religion I would def choose my religion. At the end of the day, in my belief, we are here to worship our god the way HE wants us to worship him, not the way we want.
So, I don't see the problem of asking to respect that and not to use religious concepts in the statements to keep the platform a healthy and non-harming place for everyone.
You're saying some good things, but again I've never said the opposite. I've said you shouldn't care if others care, not you shouldn't care. Most likely the author instinctively used it without thinking much of it. We all are humans and we all could have done it without thinking that it'll cause an argument. My point is that it shouldn't cause an argument.
Sure, I get your point.
and this is why this blog is out there, to make future problem-setters consider this factor in their process of writing the problem statements.
this blog disrespects me as a non-believer
Try to make your mind work and you will change this idea. All of these things around you without a creator ?? Search for the truth, you are fooling yourself only.
The creator is not necessarily Allah, it might be the Christian God
Might ? you can't build your belief on "might", as you wish but my point is that it's worth the search, you most probably spent more time solving graph problems than searching about your purpose as a human, give yourself a tour around different religions and try to learn some.
You don't know what you don't know and trust me .... Islam has answers to all of your questions and it has proofs that it is the ground truth.
You can start your journey here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XPbalPahx0&list=PLlXVKBG9es9V1jtNur3J2UGXGhphSAJ4N
lots of love.
There is no way one could prove the existence of god or form of it , every cringe youtube video you will ever list is not scientific , and that what I mean is it is uncontradictible , you might say oh if god didnt existed everything would be in a chaos! , well we all know that is bold statement that you make to seems scientific(!) , We all know even if a zombie apocalypse starts tomorrow and a meteor hits the earth other day , people will still be praying to their god. Just accept that you have your own belief , be open minded to the possibility that it might not be true and question something before you believe . Personally I am a muslim , but I am very well aware that many scientific things contradict with it , but I would chose scientific methods everytime. Islam is a religion existing to regulate the morality of society and the individual and nothing more than that.
Is P = NP?
That problem name disrespect me as a believer
And that's another reason we should avoid such situations in the first place
Skill issue + cope + ratio + L + seethe + mald
I agree with you. However, the site should stay away from matters related to religions because this site brings together many cultures and religions from all over the world
Totally agree! No religion was meant to be brought in by the statement, it is expression of someone powerful and admired (look up definition of god on google). Only this blog brought religion into it...
I agree with you
As a muslim I totally agree with you
Sorry, you are low rated.
Mike rn: https://codeforces.net/problemset/problem/1829/H
--deleted cause I am getting too many downvotes--
As a Muslim I totally agree with you.
Totally agree.
I agree with you
As a Muslim I totally agree with you
If it was div4 would it still have been offensive?
Best comment. Where is your crown , king. Can not i upvote this comment more than once.
You are paying attention to rating more than its value.
And yes, it will remain offensive.
I completely agree with the post. Although the authors may not have intended to offend anyone with the title "The Man Who Became a God," it has indeed upset many Muslims. I've seen a lot of people in Arab problem-solving groups expressing their frustration and opting out of participating as a result. it would be better to have rules in place that discourage using words like 'god' or any other terms that might offend certain groups of people.
I agree, also the statement has nothing to do with the name, the strongest life form and god are as different from each other as salt and lightbulb, read the dictionary.
I totally agree with you
why does only muslim people get offended by these things? There are many people from different religions too . Hindu, Christian, Sikhs all were just enjoying the contest and all know that it is just a problem name nothing more than that. I don't know how you got offended just by the name of the problem. If this problem statement was offendable then all people could get offended but only muslims. Now, you all will say muslim religion is over all religion. blah blah blah
Go over my code pray lord hanuman for your next contest.
As a Muslim, our religion is the central core of our lives, that's why we get offended by some words and we're not planning to stop! I actually don't understand how would a non-muslim not be offended if someone says something against their beliefs and wants them to repeat it, isn't this your religion!!! FYI, Muslims all over the world are over 2 billion, so what if only Muslims get offended?! we're not a minority!
As a Hindu i can say i won't be offended even if someone say i am the God. We don't get offended easily unless you start to abuse our gods. That's why there is a huge majority of muslims in terrorist world. They can be manipulated easily and that is not the case for other religions specially for hindus.
Since you brought up terrorism, k!lling people with no right to do so is also against Islam, it's also considered offensive. Think of it, if I tell you to do or say something really unnecessary but you might consider it offensive and I still don't get your point of view, what should I do? I'll leave the answer for you.
I agree, as a Muslim I believe that no God but Allah
Agree with you.
Why is the blog down-voted that heavily? Perhaps the problem name was irrelevant to its actual statement and (maybe) was intended to provoke some people or force an idea to be tolerated with (If I am a believer in Allah why force on me the statement "A man became god"). After all, it is just a div2 A but I hope when a contest is reviewed by an administrator to suggest improvements over such things.
Indeed, there is no correlation between the title and the content of the problem. Simply, he could have put the title "the man VS the army" or "weaken the enemies", but I think that is intentional.
Because when I read this problem, and if I was writing such problem, I would not think for 1 second that this offends anyone because it shouldn't. I don't want to be on my tiptoes around considering certain topics in general. It's just keeping theme of an anime and be entertaining...
Totally agree
It isn't acceptable for Muslims, it is so offensive to our religious. Codeforces mostly have Muslim people who should be respected
I agree with you you have to respect other's beliefs
Totally agree
Agree
I agree with you
I agree with you
I agree with U
Only Peaceful community have problems like this.
Totally agree with you
Agreeee with you
You should focus on solving problems instead of crying, clearly most of the people are crying not because of the name, but because they can't solve problems, it's obvious seeing how only grays/greens/cyans are crying
I see you are not a red one who can talk.
Guess what , you are a green and disrespectful one.
Waiting for "you are not a red | green too !" ,
but guess at least I respect other's religion.
talk to me when you actively solve problems, stop solving *800 and skipping contests whenever its too hard for you, lol
But we agree you are not red & disrespectful one.
yeah but im not crying
HOW SO, No one cries.
We defend for our religion,
Although you respect that or not we really don't care about you.
you're literally crying right now, its cp, not politics or religion, dont force your religion on others, no one cares
i wont even care if you're gay
I tell you,
we don't need an advice from someone green & disrespectful.
you're still replying so clearly ur interested
I agree with u.
I Agree with your point, but maybe it is a bit impractical? I mean codeforces problem writers, like participants of contests, are from different backgrounds and cultures, they can't know if what they wrote is insulting in another culture, right?
Hello Codeforces community!
I'd like to discuss an issue from the blog post "More Respectful Problem Names, please!" that caught my attention, concerning the problem name, "The Man who became a God".
Codeforces has been an incredible platform for enhancing our skills and engaging in healthy competition. However, this blog gave me pause. It presents Muslim beliefs, and as an Atheist, it directly contradicts and disrespects my core beliefs. Moreover, it may also offend individuals of other faiths which don't believe in a higher power. Furthermore, I discovered that some of my friends chose not to visit Codeforces upon noticing the content of the blog, as the ideas it presents is offensive to those who adhere to our belief system (unfortunately, I only noticed it after it was too late).
In the Atheist belief, we have lines that we can't cross, one of them is adhering to the belief's guidelines when we talk about the entity of god.
The meaning of the word "Atheist" is: a lack of theism (the belief that there is no god).
Accepting such names or being normal around them contradicts the concept of "Atheism".
You might not value such a thing in your belief, maybe even condemn it, but being respectful of others' beliefs is essential, don't you think so? :)
This incident highlights the impact that such posts create divisions and discourage people from engaging in the Codeforces community. It is important to remember that Codeforces is a global community with participants from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. As a platform that aims to bring programmers together, it is crucial that we keep an environment where everyone feels respected and valued.
I strongly encourage the Codeforces administration to think about how blog posts can affect people, and to create guidelines that promote respect for diverse beliefs.
Thanks for reading! Keep coding and stay awesome!
I'm sure problem creator didn't see that coming.
Agree or disagree, this is a fucking competitive programming website. Not a drama teller. Next contest, "The man who became a Nazi", "The man who became a Nigga", some words are not comfortable for some people for reasons that are irrational to other people. You don't have to respect it, just live and let live, just write a generic fucking story. People disagree on a lot of shit, and that shit is not necessary for competitive programming. We're not gonna achieve world peace here, we all hate each other and we're here to solve the bloody contest problems, not ours.
I just realized that y'all are ranting about using a f*cking JoJo reference as a problem title LMAO this is beautiful.
In the nearest time when I'll be a problem setter I will write a whole contest about describing how disgusting, awful, and dreadful LGBT is.
I agree with you
I agree with you I can't believe that there is a person make down votes I guess those who make down vote need a psychotherapist
I agree with you.
I totally agree.
With due respect, MikeMirzayanov, I want to say something. What's wrong with this post? Why are the atheist people downvoting this post? Why did they create a divide? Please make the community clean, friendly, and respectful. It's really pathetic when a user talks about his or her definite community rights, then he got downvoted, demotivated, and suffers from the sh*t people. Please take legal & logical action. Hope we all would be happy. Thanks.
First, the problem does not speak of the christian God, as much as it is believed within this faith that He is the one and only, and therefore addressing him would have to come by some definite article, not an undefinite article (as is the case here, "a God"). (Aside this, I would like to note that as much as it may be disrespectful for the Muslim community, in Christianity this should/would be disrespectful as well, as it is there believed too that there should be no worshipping of false idols)
Therefore, we can conclude that the usage of the word "God" within this phrase resides to the meaning "a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity". Therefore, a god is something that transcendes the capabilities of a human being, therefore "The man who became a god" is ultimately a testament to the power that this character has achieved (And this phrase can be further understood within the context the authors hinted at).
Ultimately, nowhere within any part of the contest has any entity related to the contest imposed their beliefs of christianity upon you (and that is the source of all the "hate"). If only the mentioning of an alternate deity is enough for hate to spark within you, I hardly find any difference for one to start another blog asking the codeforces administration to take down your blogpost solely because the word "Muslim" interferes with their own personal beliefs. I hope we can both agree such a case would only display the jejune character of this writer.
Agreed, We are not here to talk about Religion or Politics or such things. It is just a CP Website
I just can't understand why people are hating so much if you think the name doesn't matter much why the fuck do you care if they change it or not??! It's not like they are changing your mother's name just leave the guy express his opinion and don't turn this into a non ending religious debate.
As a Muslim I totally agree with you
Thank you so much for making a post about this issue. I totally agree that such statements should never be allowed.
Yesterday I wanted to talk about the name of this problem ,but you wrote about it and I totally agree with you bro.
I would like to point out that despite you agree with this post or not, this is a very good example of how you speak up to raise concerns about your views, beliefs, etc.
While it is true that the problem author might not be aware about this, as others said, it could be easily avoided with the amount of people involved in preparing the round.
This is also a well-written post that shows good care for the community, and we are expecting to see more of these in this platform if anything similar happens in the future.
Respect.
Thank you!
MikeMirzayanov, Please consider this.
Its only offended or more precisely Not suitable if it was talking about "your belief" or "your god " And there is no mention to any ot these in the statement , the term god is not exclusive to Islamic god , actually Muslims don't use the word god they use Allah instead . If you believe in something you cant force people to shut up if they have different belifies or prevent them from expressing what they belive in or even write a fictional story ! in Islamic country and i live in one of them you can study mythology and "God" is a mythologic term that used in this literature with a specific definition different than Abrahamic religions and this problem used that "god" . so come down guys.
I am a muslim and I was not offended by the problem name , I think this is a waste of time-type discussion but since there are lots of alt-accounts that agree with the author of the blog , it seems like author knows the only way he might convince someone is by showing 50 zero-rated accounts are agreeing with him
It is clear that the problem writer has no intentions to disrespect muslim people , they are just creating fictions for the problems to make contestants have fun a little bit.
come on ... are you serious , why would he do that , just try to be smarter . The world doesn't work the way you think
So since there is no intentional disrespect , lets come to the second argument : What happened to our indulgance and kindness traditions ? so will we just shut up everyone on the earth who is disrespecting our religion (even if it is intentional) . We cant just block every idea that contradicts with out beliefs , and doing so will only humiliate your own belief ( and that is what is happening right now ).
Third and last argument : I believe people like you are too stupid to understand that blocking ideas doesnt do anything that you hope for , it will not change anyone's idea , you will only lower your prestige and people will continue to spread the ideas somehow.
I hope every muslim accepts this , I believe this kind of behaviour shows itself because of the harsh islamic culture today : where everyone thinks they are the last true muslim and they do the gods work by deciding who is right / wrong and punishing them
I find it funny you guys protecting Allah while he/she doesn't.
Who asked?