Hello everyone!
2 weeks ago the ACM-ICPC Arab regional contest was held.
Our Team participated in it after earning gold medals at the ECPC (3rd place).
Our Sad Story
During the contest we came upon a problem that no other team has attempted yet, and we actually submitted about 6 solutions for it, with the first two getting TLE response and the other four getting WA.
After failing to see what the problem is with our code we decided to leave it be and concern ourselves with other problems, that was nearly at minute 140.
After exactly 194 minutes from the start of the contest another team attempted the problem only to get WA. Also, at minute 214 another team (which happens to be the champion of both the ECPC and the ACPC) submitted a solution and also got a WA.
Then after a few minutes we find that there was some problems with the judge's solution and that all solutions to such problem were rejudged. This was after minute 214 of the contest (probably minute 220 or so). It turned out that our solution that we submitted at minute 90 was the correct solution, thus we were the first team to get the problem Accepted (from 4th submission, by the way).
Looking at the wasted time, that was more than 2 hours out of a 5 hour contest, which is 40% of the entire duration. We were held back for at least an hour trying to debug a solution that was already correct! and another hour until we were told that the solution was indeed correct. Not to mention the stress that we felt the entire time because at the time we decided to leave the problem be, we were in the middle of the scoreboard with only 2 problems solved while the top team solved 6 problems.
Now, 9 teams from our region have all been qualified to the WF (6 of them were Egyptians) and we weren't among them, the last team to qualify held the 13th position in the standings with 6 problems solved, while we solved 5 problems held the 15th position.
We went to the closing ceremony to see what they would do to fix the issue, but it turned out that only the judging team knew about the issue and nobody else. Not to mention that nobody apologized to our team not in the closing ceremony nor in person! :(
What we see now is that we have been screwed, and if we were given at least 30 more minutes we would have solved 2 more problems at least, because near the end of the contest we had a minor bug in a solution and only needed little more time to fix it, and another correct solution ready on paper.
We sent a complaint mail to the ACPC executive director but with no response. Then we escalated this matter to the ICPC sending another complaint mail to ( Contest Manager, Director — Regional Contests, Director — Judging, ICPC Technical Director, ICPC Deputy Executive Director, ICPC Executive Director, ACM HQ Coordinator, World Finals Director, Director, North Africa and the Middle East Contest ) but it has been 10 days and nobody responded.
Is it too hard for the ACPC judging team to make and test 12 problems in a year?!!!
Note that, this problem only got submissions before the judges fixed the issue from only 3 teams: Ours (which was affected by the issue the most), another one (which was paricipating unofficially), and the final one was the champion.
Another Note, this happened to our team 3 time this year, The first one was in the local contest, we attempted a problem and only getting WA then after the contest day we talked with the judge finding out there is a issue in the intended solution and ours was AC, but we were the 1st so that did not affect us badly. The 2nd time was in the national contest ECPC 2016 we attempted problem K only getting WA then after more than 30 minutes it become AC as there were invalid test cases, but that also did not affect us very badly as we were still held 3rd place. But the 3rd time was at the regional contest making our 2 years of training meaningless :(
This is indeed a sad story. This should never happen in a regional contest where teams are selected for the World Finals.
Unfortunately, there is no fair way to resolve the issue because nobody knows what would have happened if the test cases had been correct. You can't know how much time other teams spent for the problem even if they didn't submit anything.
I think the only good solution would be to organize a new contest.
theoretically yes, organizing a new contest is the best solution.
But i do not think they can do it.
You said that you only solved 2 while others solved 6. That means that there were 4 easier problems than the one that you attempted. There is no possible reason to stay 2 hours on a problem while there are lots that have already been solved by a lot of teams.
There is no excuse for the wrong problem or for the lack of an apology/response to any email but you lost the qualification on your hand.
Next time you should also work on your strategy. Unfortunately, a good strategy is the most important quality you can have in ACM-ICPC as a team.
P.S. The winning team won because they didn't try the faulty (and heavily unsolved) problem until there were out of anything they could solve within some reasonable amount of time. Perfect strategy as far as I can tell!
For sure we did not stuck on this problem all the time. Only me was trying to debug and stress the solution to find why it was WA until minute 140 then decide to leave it and see other problems.
But you can not say you lost the qualification on your hand because we spent some time trying to find out why this submission was wrong.
My team did not follow the scoreboard only, to know what to solve. As you see here, this is our national scoreboard, and my team got first to solve on 2 problem (A,K) that not many teams from top 10 have solved. So I think our strategy is not that bad.
Well, if you didn't work 2 hours only on this problem please don't make it sound like you did. Reread what you wrote...It seems that there are a lot of hyperboles in your article. Don't exaggerate such for the sake of a shocking article. Probably the real situation is much more different than what is presented here.
Being the first in solving something is pretty useless in this kind of contest (unless you really have a chance in winning the whole thing). It is again your fault for not following the scoreboard (that's the main reason why you have one) or for not giving up on the problem when nothing really worked.
Well you cannot say that there were easier 4 problems :D
me as if i were a contestant i think i would attempt that problem in the first hour :D
it was really easy but tricky and you should pay attention to a tiny detail to solve it.
Someone of the judges told me that it was considered the 4th easiest problem , So you cannot judge if you don't the problems.
And judges have no excuse :D
I can't say that there were 4 easier problems because I haven't seen any of them. But if there were problems with a higher acceptance rate, there was virtually no point in choosing this problem.
Actually, If you can solve it and convinced that your idea is correct, then there's no point in not solving it!
Is what u have said an excuse for preparing a wrong problem in a contest where teams are to be selected for the world finals?
An issue in a regular CF contest leads to it being unrated. And this is about the world finals!
what u say is not fully correct according to me. There can't be excuses for preparing a sub-standard quality problem, as it can affect different people in different ways.
The contest should take place again.
I guess you are talking about my comment. I've already said that there is NO excuse for problem setters or for the organizers (for the email part).
As far as having another contest, I guess it is pretty clear that the idea if just plain dumb. It would be unfair to all the teams + it would be impossible to do on such short notice (please try to be part of something this big before you start throwing stones at the judges).
A regular CF round has nothing to do with a regional contest. They don't even belong in the same category so there is no point in comparing them. You can't make a regional unrated just because you screwed up a problem.
Do you know it's the last chance for some teams?
CF contest make it unrated (every one can register to CF contest at any time) so the regional must take place again
I do realize that it is an awful situation and I am really sorry for the unfortunate team.
It is sad to leave the world of ACM ICPC programming competitions in such manner but life is crueler than it is fair. Screwing with all the teams by redoing the contest is hardly a solution (also 9 teams are quite a lot to qualify to the WF, but this is debatable).
Welcome to the arab region where making money is a top priority and making good problems is a minor detail
Seems that in your region the random part of contests is highly significant. Teams should estimate the probability that some problems may contain bugs and act accordingly. What happened to you is mainly a bad luck, but there was a minor fault of yours as you didn't consider the possibility of the jury's mistakes.
Should I consider a jury's mistake in a regional contest that qualifies to the world finals? Should I pay 1500$ (this is too much in Egypt) and expect that 12 problems were not fully tested in a whole year? Should I consider that jury's mistake is one of the reasons that gives me wrong answer? oh, I am not tourist to confirm that the judge solution is wrong and leave the problem to be rejudged :D
1500$, what the f&*%? What is that money used for. On Polish Collegiate Programming Contest participation fee per team is <100$. Maybe it is smaller contest, but still difference is ridiculous. Or did you also include booking hotel and travel?
Hotel booking is included, but travel fees are not.
hotel is included but not optimal
Hotel isn't optional, you can't even go to a cheaper hotel or a one of your choice.
On top of that setters are not even paid, all their work is voluntarily. So I don't think any of this money goes to anything related to the contest itself (except balloons maybe :D).
You know nothing :P
There are a lot of things more important than the contest and the contestants themselves.
Lucky you , you're not Arab. So I guess you are not familiar with these stuff :D
Yeah. Even with hotel booking and everything, there's no way it would cost more than a few 100 $. I'd say the organisers just feel they deserve a $1000 premium for hosting a failcontest.
The contestants are booked (with no other option) in a fancy 5-star hotel, and the contest hall is actually a conference center, used for international events, some of which include foreign presidents, this is the most elite venue an event can be hosted in. ACPC organization can't be compared to any other regional contest organization, it even outperforms the ICPC organization. Sounds fancy but IBM pays for ICPC, unlike ACPC in which contestants have to pay a lot. But contest-wise, you probably know how we do :/
It might be worth it to find out how much it would actually cost, since that seems like still too much. I bet you'd find something if you had a money trail to follow. The decision itself to overpay seems very suspicious already.
It might also be worth it to enroll in a university in a region where ICPC isn't retarded. The option may be impractical, but it exists. (Note: Most of Europe isn't a good idea, something tells me people there wouldn't react any better to more Arabs. One notable exception is Sweden — you might even get people there to fund you.)
Yeah you are right. I am really disappointed that Xellos didn't understand the sarcasm :( .
Actually, the national contest (ECPC) costs 75$ for participating only..
No accommodation nor transportation included!!
I want to add some thing that happened with my team in ACPC During the practice session our machine didn't work well and we told the system that we have a problem with our machine please fix it, because tomorrow will be the contest. in the next day (contest day) the machine fail again after 15 minute of the beginning of the contest they didn't any thing after the practice session and we lost 15 minute and our focus at the beginning of the contest!!
B.T.W in ECPC I send the same code twice first one TLE and second AC and i told the judge to update the scoreboard. another thing that happened. our network didn't work for 10 minute.
Welcome to ECPC & ACPC
So Unfair
I just can't imagine the reason why those people are still in charge
Non Arabs won't understand you. The situation of ICPC contests in Arab countries is as bad as it can get. The same organizers are in charge of all Arab ICPC contests and 99% of them barely know a thing or two about solving problems. Not to mention the terrible quality of problems. This seriously needs to be changed.
Nice to see this post here,
In fact i don't like to complain because something in my brain tells me that people would say fool just searched about an excuse.
But the fact that no one can refuse is that my team paid 1500$ to attend a contest with a PC that hangs every 30 seconds. in ACPC2016 my team spent around 75 minutes until they changed the PC, given that we told them in the practice contest our PC is very bad and they should change it before the contest.
did that affect us? Yes, it did. i got nervous, and i can't think when i'm nervous. as result i solved 0 problems in the contest while i was able to solve 3.
I think the most important people in the contest which are the system team and judges didn't see their work this year.
In fact me and my team were managing to visit the world finals hall as world finalists this year, as we ranked 7th in ECPC2016 but because of disregard form the system team we have been punished, the same happened by the judges to one of the best teams twice as mentioned in aka.Sohieb's blog.
i'm just wondering why nobody complained about the $1500 reg fee in cf until this thread. maybe the arab people are really rich(?).
It actually does happen that your team complains about it and then they will just disqualify you from the Regionals. As funny as it may seem but it isn't a joke, It really does happen.
I've just calculated, in NEERC, even if you fly from Vladivostok, it will cost ~1300$ per team (this includes flight, accomodation and fee, add ~30$ for food). For most teams from European part of Russia it will cost ~300-500$ per team. And universities usually pay for everything.
I know someone who complained that he doesn't have the choice to go to another hotel and he was kicked out from the hotel by the contest organizers :D
Also one happened this year when a team of my university sent an email to one of ICPC staff complaining about the overpriced fees and asking if there's an alternative, they responded that it's possible and you should contact the ACPC director, they did and later they found that they got disqualified and their team was removed from the icpc site. Later we had to contact the ACPC director to ensure that they will pay so they can be registered back.
A7A it's too much
It is extremely unfortunate when situations like this occur. As a judge for ICPC, I know that it is possible for us to make mistakes--but there should be many, many safe-guards in place to ensure that they do not happen (e.g., in our region, we have several people look at/solve each problem independently with validators, generators, etc). The fact that they did not acknowledge the error is horrible. Any decision of judges should be transparent and as fair as possible. Being completely fair, however, is an impossible task--for example, what if the contest is re-held and DebugMyHair [the first place team] didn't qualify for World Finals that time? There are no good solutions for this. And coming up with an interesting and fair make-up contest in such a short time is nearly impossible.
Sadly, this type of thing has happened many times before around the world. Thankfully, the number of occurrences seems to be dropping, but they haven't stopped yet. I can tell you that in the several situations that I know of this occurring, no one has been granted a spot at World Finals (this is actually a rule--see below).
In cases of appeals, there is a formal appeals process in place (here). From your post, it is hard to tell if you followed this--especially (a) sending the complaint to the Contest Manager within 24 hours of the contest and (b) your coach sending the email, not the contestant. The Appeals Committee are very particular about teams following these rules precisely--and this may be why you have not received a reply. Also note the key item being "No additional finals invitations will be given to remedy a complaint.", so if you were to go, another team would not advance from your region.
A word of advice (for official matters like this, to you and to others wishing to send in appeals): do not use "if we were given at least 30 more minutes we would have solved 2 more problems at least, because ..." in your appeal. We all have been in situations where there is a minor bug in our code, but it takes 10 hours to find it, and the Appeals Committee is very familiar with this and will not consider "what-ifs" like this (and I do fully agree with them on that--this is unfair to the teams that you are "kicking out" of their World Finals spot for a "what-if").
I want to make it clear that I am not defending the judges of this contest. As a judge, it saddens me when other judges do not seem to take the role seriously and verify all of the data in several different ways. Moreover, it enrages me when they do not take responsibility for their mistake--transparency is key. Being an ICPC judge takes hundreds of hours each year meticulously checking problem statements and data for even the smallest things (last week, we discussed for half an hour if we should change the word "of" to "for" in a sentence--we ended up just rewriting the sentence).
I hope that this never happens to you again (or anyone else, for that matter!).
Thank you for your reply and concern.
Me and my team know we didn't follow the formal appeals process as we knew about it late. So we almost sure that there is no hope for us to visit the world finals Hall this year.
We are not desperate to go to the world finals, this is not what we wrote the blog for, also we do not want to take anybody's place, they have all done well and they all deserve it, our purpose was that this would not occur again. Especially when we saw the chief judge posting on FB after the contest (Yet another successful run for ACPC) here.
If this is the successful run what the unsuccessful one should be!!!
I heard about this after the contest, that really hurts because you really deserve to be in the World finals.
My team is the 13'th on the scoreboard.
My teammate read this problem after the contest and solved it, but we didn't notice it during the contest because there weren't many teams who solved it, perhaps because of the judges' mistake. I think it is not a strategic mistake that you attempted this problem in minute 90 of the contest. I would have done the same thing if I read it because it was the 3rd or the 4th easiest problem.
We were attempting problem G in the first hour of the contest and it wasn't solved yet on the scoreboard, then we got WA three times and wasted about an hour before leaving it and trying to solve other problems, although we were really sure about our solution at that time. So I think you could have done the same thing in order to save your time.