Hello, guys!
17 months ago I have made a post in my Codeforces blog inviting high-rated coders to join a secret group on Facebook. The link to the post is here. Sad news is that it is currently totally inactive as many members of the group are probably too busy with their careers... However, it can be seen that many of you need this group, because I get a lot of messages of people requesting to join the group. I apologize if I have ignored your message (I just did not have enough patience to write that the group is inactive over and over again).
In fact, I believe that we can resurrect the group, so invite all high-rated members to join! The requirement that you need to satisfy is following: currect_codeforces_rating + max_codeforces_rating + topcoder_rating >= 6000
If you don't have a topcoder account, currect_codeforces_rating + max_codeforces_rating >= 4500 (harder to satisfy).
Other requirements are similar to described in the old post:
You have to participate at least once per week in any contest
You have to be solving at least 3 types of the contests currently from this list:
- Topcoder
- Codeforces
- OpenCup
- ITMO training
- Codechef (any type)
- Hackerrank (any type)
- COCI
- USACO
- ZOJ contests
- SPOJ contests
If you want to join the described group — please write to me privately on Codeforces. Show me that you satisfy all the requirements and provide me with your email address (to send the invitation to the group to). Some people had problems with getting the invitation by email. The email address which is associated with Facebook works better, so you are advised to write this address.
P. S. Sorry if I can't get back to you immediately after I read your message. Codeforces has a limit of writing to the maximum of 10 distinct users per one hour.
UPD. Some people wanted that the group would be made public. The members of the group voted and decided that it should be public. Rejoice! The link to the group (if you want to post or comment, you still have to enter the group)
Why did requirements go up so much :( ? In the old post it was CF rating of >=2000 and I would have made it but don't with these requirements. Anyway I guess for me like probably many people I will have to wait until I get better to be able to join.
There are two main reasons for this. The first one is that the members in the group have improved significantly, and we have plenty of grandmasters in Codeforces. This is why newcomers are expected to satisfy higher requirements. Another cause of this is that the size of the group is expected to be rather small (at least less than 100 members), in order to keep it convenient and able to cater to the needs of its members.
There's a way to add 'weaker' members as spectators only ?
If the group is public, then everyone could see their activity without joining. But, probably they need to have some privacy, you know ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Tourist be like "Ohh, Mine is more than 10K " :P
Why facebook? Wouldn't a closed Codeforces group be more appropriate? Some people (me included) don't hang around facebook, but visit CF regularly. Also, facebook is blocked in some countries.
Don't tell me that you really do not consider fb at least 10 times more convenient for this purpose x_0.
What exactly is more convenient? I'm not really familiar with facebook features. The differences I know: facebook has video and photo-albums; CF has LaTeX support.
Uh, oh, LaTeX support, you have just realized me that this is something which seems basic that Facebook lacks :o. Maybe if you do not use Facebook that much than difference for you may be not that big, but for people familiar with it (I assume, majority here) it will be convenient to have everything in one place, receive instant notifications about new posts and comments versus some not that well developed group feature where you will need to constantly check out some weird subpage of cf whether someone posted anything and also since this is symmetric, you will have definitely lower feedback of blog entries you will write since noone will see them in a reasonable timeframe.
Not just LaTeX support, FB notes behaviour are very stupid. Last time I wrote a note, and there was some "<" character in there (because it is coding stuff). Most the things after that "<" character is gone.
But yeah, other than that thing I agree that FB is simple to use. Faster to comment / easier to tag people and so on.
One can install a browser plugin for displaying LaTeX. I've been using "TeX The World for Chromium" for some time. It could use some improvements, but for the purpose of short formulas it works pretty well.
Didn't you intern at facebook this summer? Sounds like you might be biased :)
Yes, I do, but lol, lack of notifications will completely kill that even now not really inactive group. Btw "Recent actions" are not that bad, but groups forums are definitely worse, I have just learnt that they exist and fact that I didn't know this even though I belong to three groups is I think sufficient argument :).
Could I know details about how do you train inside that group?
and I'm not getting why we should give you email while it's facebook group , shouldn't we give you fb account instead?
There is nothing going on right now (as we are trying to recover the group). Additionally, the group is open for the ideas and the members are likely to adopt different training techniques.
It's easier to invite people by emails, as I can add only my friends as accounts. I don't store the provided emails in any way.
What is the purpose and what goals does it aim?
Please read the old post.
Link for your reference: http://codeforces.net/blog/entry/11369
Can u make it just visible to other people. This will not disturb you pro guys and make the weaker guys like me know the right way to practice. I think this is not that difficult. Is their any problem in that?