Teams advancing to 2016 WF Phuket in Asia have been announced recently. This announcement is undisputedly tantamount to a death sentence for me. I am the one waiting anxiously, refresh Dr. Hwang's blog everyday. But it seems that for years, our training was meaningless.
I think many of us dedicate our passion to programming contests because we see them transparent, fair and without any corruption. And I also believe that as contestants, what we should do is only focus on the practice. And I thought those political business should never come to bother me one day. But sadly, it is my team who is going to become one of the sacrifices of a succession of the dissension.
What happened so far
The quarrel between the Asia director and the local community is a long story to tell. But it has never been as serious as it was in the past season. Now reflecting on this, I know on the surface everything is going okay, but I still feel something wrong. The number of slots is decreasing, as well as the power of those multifarious bonus are rising. So the feeling of the unfairness multiplied. According to this article, before the last day, you do not know the exact X or Y in his algorithm. That means, you can always put any number to these parameters after the contest. And the way he decided to put in those variables, which was quite arbitrary and dictatorial. I am afraid those parameters were used to suppress opponents and those who are close to Dr. Hwang will be easy to pass. Now can it be right, to reject a team on the relationship between the authority? But it is exactly what we do, and now it is almost a open secret for us. If you guys have any opposition, you are directly set yourself to the hard mode. In quicksort, there is a strategy called “killer adversary”, I think that is exactly our situation. In fact, last year in China, the contest divided into 2 events, one called ICPC and another is called CCPC. The CCPC event is simultaneous with Changchun site. And some of the school last year was united to refuse to take part in Changchun Site in order to against the overladen bonus, according to the board, we could see there are lots of strong teams seems didn’t come and take part in the Changchun site. But despite of this, Changchun site still get 1 more slot than other sites, and some site has 3 slots while some site is only 1 slot barely. Is that fair? I don’t think so. Last year, I thought staying in the top 6 could have a chance to enter final… This year, I thought staying in the top 2 must have a chance to enter final. As far as I know, there is no team in our region in history which get 2nd place but cannot go to final. And the logic is the same as what he has done on the Chennai flood. Initially a rule was brought out to reduce the number of slots from Chennai to 1. It was later decided to award an extra slot to Chennai. But it turned out, this extra slot was actually the bonus slot that was going to be given to Amritapuri (as it had proposed to host the world finals in future, smell some sense of Stockholm syndrome?). The net effect is, the number of teams from India is reduced due to postponement rule announced so hastily after the Chennai regional was postponed. This awarding of the extra slot to Chennai is just a sleight of hand designed to look like it is fair.
My wish
Well, don’t get me wrong. I am not against the rule this year, I am against the way the rule has been made. The problem with this system, is that it’s this sort of long, slow expansion in personal power. If you don't make a sound this time, things may become more and more dangerous in the future. One of my spiritual idol Aaron Swartz once argued that it was sometimes necessary to break the rules that required obedience to the system in order to avoid systemic evil. So, at my point of view, at least all officials concerned should be consulted. There should be some discussion before taking any decision. The voting should be transparent. The slot calculation is needlessly complicated and could be much simplified. There could be bonus slots but shouldn’t affect the acknowledged game rules. There should be no parameters remain to be determined after the contest. I know in the early day in the ICPC history, Dr. Hwang had done great contribution to bring this event for us. But as times alter, today, the power is overwhelming, and he is stand on the opposite of the sport spirit, the way in which Dr. Hwang makes decision should be questioned. What he has done this time is just to make an example out of us, to use this case for deterrence. So that next time we are submitted to his power. And if we could not do something that take a fair environment back, the reputation of the contest in the sub-region will be badly influenced. Do we really willing to see there are 5 CCPC together with 5 ICPC in the coming season? Do we really need this privilege to keep the health and vitality? I am afraid our students will be seriously exhausted on this issue and the community will appear to diverge further.
Update
Thanks everyone!
Dr. Hwang has just replied to me that he will try after one week for an additional participation slot for Asia. But still said nothing about the X+Y scheme. Looking for the further reaction. The chance is slim. But no matter what outcome will be, I have already felt the warmth of the community!
we just hope a fair contest, why so hard?
Auto comment: topic has been updated by MinakoKojima (previous revision, new revision, compare).
well. we just hope a fair contest. !
Dont be sad anymore, girl. life has more things to do than it
not a girl,but a boy
well. we just hope a fair contest. !
Do not be sad anymore, girl.
He is a man!
Please, don't try to search me on the Internet! That is nothing to do with the topic.
Ok, sorry.
Have you tried to escalate this to Bill Poucher? Did he analyse the case?
Yes, I do, but there is no response at the moment.
I share your post on FB and Bill reply me with this comment. It doesn't tell much actually, but still a reply..
For those ppl not able access FB or not my friend to see the posts, here is what Bill reply:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HgEU4_AgOsdA2jCrTZVdCA5WTBrfwjJk0CfI50Y7_i0/edit Is a link to a document that describes how and why slots are allocated. All are by performance. The confusion typically arises for a competition that is restricted to universities in a geographic area that allows other teams, not qualified to advance from that region, to compete for practice. We could stop this practice. But the teams that get to travel improve their performance and the the local teams that have not yet developed to as high a competitive level, get to compete against tougher teams.
Sometimes it is economic. For hosting a World Finals a country may receive a host slot that goes to the highest performing team from the country. Rather than running a separate country, the results of an encompassing competition are restricted to teams from that country to determine the winner.
Such slots are available to all, but you must organize a world finals to get them.
The key is that every goal is addressed through allocating groups of slots based on different models. Knowing an ICPC leader doesn't help. Doing something extraordinary, does help.
Being a runner up is frustrating, but it is a terrific accomplishment.
It seems to me that this reply is irrelevant with this article ...
Hope a fair contest. I wish have a fair rule to advance to WF. Come on! xiaodao.
There are no absolutely fair contests in the world. I think you can try to mail to Golden Bear.
At least, there should be no parameters(such as X, Y...) of the rule remain to be determined.
Agree.
Xiaodao I adore you!
We are always on your side!
I don't know many information about Asia region wf slots assigment. And from this post I knew nothing more. Please reduce your emotions and explain, what was unfair? If there are a lot of teams (exluding teams bonused for hosting WF) in Asia superregion which is weaker than you and going to WF, then prove it.
First, my point of view is not about the teams, is about the rules.
See here. Let me give it a short summary, you know there is a X and a Y in his algorithm, but you do not exactly know the range of them as well as the sum. If your coach is familiar with Asia director, OK, you can either get top X in A or top Y in B, that is enough.
But if not, you'd better get both top X and top Y in both sites, that will make sure you could be pass. Unfortunately, since my school is the leader of CCPC this year, before everything start, I know I must get both top X and top Y in two site, that is the only way I could do to pass this barrier. And this is such a bad experience of me, I thought I could do both side well, but I failed in one. So that is come to the end, the setting of X && Y was exactly right to put me outside the room. Of course, it could be just in accident. But what ever the result, I think there should be someone to point this spot out earlier.
did you carefully read the blog post? your comment is similar to, "hey, why shouldn't we only send the strongest teams to the WF? Why should we allocate slots for each region?"
I just pointed, that I don't understand what was unfair. They were good in one contest and failed another. Until it is not proven that asian director manipulated with parameters (it is really hard to prove in any case) it is not argument. So the only one reason to talk about unfairness is that they are stronger than others.
Yes, I agree with you, but how to prove that you are stronger than others? This is a hard to quantify. Your team CF/TC ratting is higher then other? I think it is not enough. You have set lots of problem for different algorithm contest? Still not convincing enough. And what I felt a great weight of sorrow is we do have 4 golden medals in the past 2 seasons, but still have lost this very chance to WF. In fact, over the past weeks, I almost lost myself into this sad river, stay away from algorithm book, hardly coding a few lines, and become more and more weak...
Problem setting obviously doesn't matter. CF/TC rating is rather good characteristic. May be you have all-China training camp, and you won it.
Interesting. I am going to all-China training winter camp next week.
The question here is "how to tell if any team got the slot is better / worse than MinakoKojima's (or other team else)"
I can't tell the answer, and actually I think no one can. So that's the point I feel unfair.
There are 3 kind of rankings here: 1. The ranking of all 5 ICPC regionals (top X teams got the slots) 2. The ranking of EC Final (top Y teams got the slots) 3. The tie break between 1 & 2
For #2, There is only 1 contest, so it's easy, the one with higher ranking goes first.
For #1. It's obvious that if a team get a higher ranking in one contest than the other, they should rank higher.
However, if both teams got 2nd places, how to tie break? A quick answer is, the one comes from a better regional goes first.
Then the question goes to, how to tell if one regional is better than the other?
How strong the teams are? How good the problems are? How does the teams performs in WF in previous years?
The current solution is, if the number of teams which solve at least 1 problem is more than the other, then the regional goes first. For example, if TeamA got 2nd place in RegionalA, and TeamB got 2nd place in RegionalB, 100 teams solve at least 1 problem in RegionalA, and 99 teams in RegionalB, than TeamA ranks higher than TeamB. It's not really fair, but still sounds kind of fair / acceptable to myself (personally).
For #3, which I guess is the place cause most people think it's unfair. That the tie break between #1 and #2 is not clear until WF slots are announced.
The first question is, what's the actual value of X & Y? The only we can tell is X + Y = 19.
The second question is, how to determine X & Y? There is no anything I can tell from Asia director's post.
So this gives people the feeling that it's manipulatable by the director (or anyone who has the ability decide the slot allocation), since they choose how to allocate X & Y after all contests, to include (and / or exclude) teams in WF slots.
I personally not share MinakoKojima's concern about Asia director intentionally remove his school from WF due to (maybe) political reason, but I really don't like the idea that introducing manipulatable factor after contests.
I think the ideal ways, is like writing an algorithm to allocate slots. You can predefine your X & Y (or at least the formula to calculate it), or whatever special handling before the contests.
But once the contests are finish, anyone (Asia director, or a random student from a random school), can use that pre-written algorithm to calculate which teams should get the WF slots. Instead of waiting a few weeks but only know that they unfortunately fail in the after contest manipulation.
Dr. Hwang is going to the completely opposite direction
"Policies and Procedures for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest"
https://icpc.baylor.edu/compete/ICPC-Policies-and-Procedures.pdf
Culture:
Organization:
Policy:
Principles:
Look at the good side, at least you have got a chance to fight for it. There are people out there like me who never got a chance, and still hanging around.
Think about what you have got, what you have learnt. There must be happy times, sparking moments.
Always remember why you engaged in this at the first place. What is the most important thing to you?
Come on and best wishes!
I don't think it makes sense to congratulate someone on not going to WF. (If it does, then thanks.)
In my opinion,last season in Aisa Regional really have some unfair,and the changes of the rule is too rush.[user:xiaodao]practice every day and night,in his qzone,there are all tutorial for Codeforces,Topcoder and so on. I really hope xiaodao can advance to WF! がんばって
Our region got 8 slots this year arab&middleeast What a shame .... We dont deserve more than 3
I am very sorry for your experience.
Me,too!Come on,xiaodao.
All rules including the tiebreaker for the EC subregion had been changed a lot last year, but they were determined before all EC regional contests. I heard that some host universities had asked the problem setters to prepare several easy problems in order to become a more influential site. I understand that the tie-breaker might be unideal and meaningless for some participants. However, the tie-breaking rule is still predetermined. We should follow predetermined rules. If X and Y had been determined before the contests, then the results should be valid. But, it might be very hard to determine X and Y without knowing the number of participation slots allocated to the EC subregion and the number of preference slots for the hosts. In my opinion, the Asia council should propose a predetermined ratio X:Y to select teams advancing to 2017 WF. (Note: the ratio is 7:4 this time.)
As a coach in the PP subregion, I don't know the points used by repeated and foreign teams in the PP subregion before the announcement of teams advancing to WF, either. These parameters also decide the selection of teams advancing from PP subregion. To me, the PP procedure is more complex than the EC procedure. I couldn't figure out which team would advance if there is one more participation slot for PP subregion this time, but I think MinakoKojima would advance to 2016 WF if there is an extra participation slot for EC subregion.
I feel your pain. Being through ACM for many years, there are also many things I hate about Asia rules (though we face different issues because of different rules).
Before going to regional this year, I always tell myself, that the only way to be sure to qualify from Asia is to be #1 of some site. Luckily for us we're not in China so that is still doable.
I used to think only my university had a questionable way of choosing ICPC teams, but after seeing the Chennai flood and this I bet we can hear a lot of stuff, though what happens here is in a much smaller scale (and not direct related to the ICPC organization). Our teams to compete in ICPC are formed like this:
It is advertised that an individual contest will take place some day and the top 3 make the first team, the next 3 are the second team and so on. However, the coach can arbitrarily change the teams formations as he desires, which means the contest for selecting teams doesn't really matter. In the past 3 ICPC seasons at least our first or second team got changed by this, and I felt really upset as I got affected negatively by that — how come I keep training more and placing better in contests (especially the one that is used to choose the teams) and get into a worse team (not only in terms of quality to the standards of competitive coders we have in my university, but also in will to compete and train) — this is negative feedback, really demotivating.
This ICPC season there was a guy who actually complained about that and he got banned forever to represent our university in future ICPCs (or at least while the coach is the same) — that guy also stopped competitive programming after that.
(This paragraph now is probably unrelated to your post) Now I finally was awarded a spot in the WF but I am not as happy as I thought I would be. As you can see my team (the three of us) is really weak compared to a lot of other ones, so we are going to WF (if we get the money to the flights, but that's another story) trying to get the smaller prizes — LATAM champions and first to solve some problem, both with really slim chances. One may say it's nice to go to WF even if you're not able to compete with the top teams (because of the difference of quality) as it can help get an interview to a tech giant or the nice hotel you stay, but I wanted to go there to beat really strong competitive coders — as your team is better rated than mine this might be your case (wanting a shot to be better in the competition since you probably can perform well), and if it is this way it's really sad as you're being prevented that.
My main point is that I couldn't control the team forming decisions in my university even in this ICPC season that I've helped training people here (I actually was really scared to act when I heard that guy was banned from participation since this was my last year participating in ICPC and that decision didn't affected my team, so I went silent), so it might be impossible to revert the decision of something that is farther from us like the decision of the director — unfortunately life is usually unfair — sometimes luck is needed more than skill to achieve something.
It sounds sad. Is this coach actually doing any coaching? :) And what's his reasoning for making these changes — something like "individual results doesn't show usability at team contests", or he doesn't need any reasons for making changes/shuffles? :) It's cool when coach is picking teams to cover all aspects of ICPC, to reach better teamwork/match and so on, but I guess you are talking about a different story.
I'm curious how ICPC selection works in your region. In my country situation like "guy got banned by a coach" is basically impossible — participation in first stage of ICPC is open for everybody, so coach can tell you "I don't want to see you being a member of any team of this university in future" — but he can't force you; you may simply register a different person as your coach at Baylor site.
Plus one can always change university if needed :)
Plus one can always change university if needed :)
Wow, really? How does that work? Do you mean that you leave your current degree and restart in some other university or is there some transfer policy that you are talking about?
First of all it was about cases when person is pursuing bachelor's degree in one university and master's degree in a different one. But I guess in a lot of countries there is some transfer policy allowing you to move from one university to another without starting from scratch.
I know quite a few cases when people represented different universities in different seasons, but I never looked in details about degrees of these contestants and stuff like that. And some people are entering university just to attend ICPC one more time, without actually aiming at getting a degree.
Plus one can always change university if needed :)
Haha. I sure agree with that. I changed my university twice for better opportunity of ACM ICPC training. So I studied in 3 different universities. My first regional was from AIUB, second one from DIU and third and fourth from NSU :3
It was worth it. Going to WF this year. Wouldn't have been possible if I didn't make those shifts :p
Is this coach actually doing any coaching?
Actually we had a coach from 2013-2014 (which is red in topcoder and was red in codeforces before the rating changes, and maybe that's why we didn't see anyone complaining to him as he was really respected here, though in 2014 I commented I wasn't really happy with the team I got) and another coach for this season (2015) (which caused some complaints because this new one didn't know what competitive programming was). Probably that's why the guy who got banned argued with the coach when he changed his team (the coach gave no excuses about the changes, and after the complaint he said other aspects were taken into account).
Usually the coach is the professor or the graduate assistant of a course about competitive programming though this course alone doesn't really help to do well in the regionals (unless the coach put you in a strong team who can perform well = )). The coach usually just pays for the trips and food for the teams of university (being refunded by the university), though the guy who was red used to train us also.
One can tell anything about why the changes were made, though in my opinion personal affairs were taken into account (though I can't prove it). In 2013 it was said that "it was taken into account primarily the team selection contest though other aspects were taken into account also". In 2014 it was said that "As lots of guys solved 3 problems (the problem set consisted of 8 problems and we had 4 hours to solve, and to be honest it wasn't really hard) we made small alterations taking into account experience in previous ICPC editions and history of problems solved". In 2015 no excuses were given as said above.
Here we usually don't have a lot of differences (for people that participate in programming contests) like a guy is really good at math but can't code really well or he knows geometry but isn't good with data structures — everyone is all around (for my university standards), so there is not much sense in changing teams saying that you`re trying to cover holes in that team.
I'm curious how ICPC selection works in your region
You can try to use a translator if you really want to know. http://maratona.ime.usp.br/regras15.html
Plus one can always change university if needed :)
Well, that guy who got banned used to be enrolled in electrical engineering and he changed to computer science (taking again the university entrance exam). I guess he won't change university as this university is pretty famous and respected in brazil, so I guess he's really done for (not only with ICPC but competitive programming in general) because of this experience.
I just wrote because I thought it was a similar story as MinakoKojima's, questionable way of doing things that for a lot of people (though I talked only about what I think a lot of people were unhappy with these decisions) were unfair and to tell about my experiences and feelings for going to WF.
I'm not sure, but I think the rules say that the coach must be approved by the university, which sadly causes some people in positions of power to take advantage of this and be coaches when actually does not train at all, forbidding competitors to choose his coach, as I think it should be. This rule does not help the contestants when the directives has to decide for them in some aspects of their training. Most of us are competing for we enjoy it, and it really sad when situations like this take place in some universities.
I'm willing to say that similar things happen over the years. In my last year during my ICPC, I got a third place in my regional contests, however, still not advanced to the final.
At that year, Dr Hwang suddenly change the advance role, using rank without teams got final medals rather than the real rank, take school that was not counted in ec regions into count.
You can never know which team will advance to the final, until Dr Hwang announce.
By the way, I was one of the teammates mentioned in the link.
Dr. Hwang Asia site director does he have a tenure or he is there till end of the world.
During WF they show some interviews and stuffs. I remember seeing one of the host asking him, how many more years he will continue doing this. I don't remember what he said exactly, but it was something along the lines of " till end of the world " :p
a mistake, BUPT not a host bonus.