DecayingSylow's blog

The Fall of Codeforces
By DecayingSylow, history, 6 months ago, In English

Some years ago, some rounds used to receive more than 2000 upvotes. Now, nice rounds such as EPIC Institute of Technology Round Summer 2024 (Div. 1 + Div. 2) receive only 300ish upvotes.

How is that possible? What's wrong in recent rounds? I don't find anything seriously wrong.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

Hello Peter.

I think those rounds you are reffering were the whiplash of their abhorrent predecessors, and as such those tended to get upvoted more easily.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -177 Vote: I do not like it

really

are you serious? it was by far worst round I've seen since I started cp.

task were too unbalanced and all problem were ad-hoc style dp or greedy.

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

    I find that tags like "greedy" and "dp" don't mean much by themselves. I think you could easily prepare a great contest whose problem tags are all only one or the other. I personally thought this was a pretty good round!

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

    It felt a bit lacking diversity but that is basically every recent round on cf. Difference is these were dp optimization instead of iq math (so nice change of pace to me).

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      6 months ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -115 Vote: I do not like it

      I believe it's quite opposite, dp is too abstract and it's simply not possible to practice such skill. no matter how many problem you solve, no matter how many tutorial/book you read, to come up with dp solution demand completely new way of thinking (high IQ) like almost all time unless standard one (ChatGPT solvable).

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      6 months ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

      I suppose this lack of diversity is due to the fact that Vladithur was the sole author of the round.

      My round, for example, had 5 counting tasks ( out of 8 total problems ).

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    so what, I think dp on F is elegant and impressive

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

    While this is heavily downvoted, I think the point is valid (if you ignore that it is construed in an overly rude and confrontational manner). In each of the last 2 contests, 3+ problems involve DP:

    • In the EPIC round, problems D, F, G2 and partially E.
    • In Global Round 26, problems C, E, F, H.

    For me personally, it made participation in these rounds overall a tedious and annoying experience. But in any case, this is irrelevant to the issue of round announcements having "not enough" upvotes. If anything, abundance of DP problems is likely to guarantee a higher number of upvotes in the modern meta.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +22 Vote: I do not like it

Newbie solve 4 question with different variable naming.. Mass cheating

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6 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

dramatic title

But I think it didn't get too many upvotes because it was 3 hours. 3 hours is brutal.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +41 Vote: I do not like it

That's true, sadly. Several years ago "As a tester" comments used to receive 200+ upvotes consistently...

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

it is currently summer, nmot fall

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +41 Vote: I do not like it

In 2020, there are so many people on CP because of stay-at-home effects. After that maybe many of them have retired and only core fans are currently here. At least, mankind overcame coronavirus to some extent and CP is in a stable period.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +144 Vote: I do not like it

Sometime between now and then, it became normal to downvote rounds you simply did not like (as opposed to deeply flawed rounds). Even in this thread we have a complaint that the round was the "worst ever" and the only reason given are a bunch of tags...

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

    we have a complaint that the round was the "worst ever" and the only reason given are a bunch of tags...

    Spoiler
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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I don't upvote most rounds since Good Bye 2023.

That round blog did end with an absolute topic rating of more than 4500! :p, (downvotes though)

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -6 Vote: I do not like it

Many times it seems tags arenot properly tagged like difficult topic tags are found while practicing problems from problem set though not much need of such concepts arenot required. Also the contest mentioned above seems a bit unfair as even new users/users with very less contest before where solving Till "D" Problem

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -6 Vote: I do not like it

I think the reason is behind the cheaters. Let me explain myself, the rounds become boring when you know that while you are trying so hard to solve every problem yourself, somebody else is just copying them and still getting a better result than you.

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

The tags of these rounds may be wrong.

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