MikeMirzayanov's blog

About Codeforces Round 445 and Technocup 2018 — Elimination Round 3
By MikeMirzayanov, 7 years ago, In English

The contest is declared unrated. For Technocup, results of this round will be counted for elimination. Also, we plan to hold one more (the fourth) elimination round to compensate this failure. Stay tuned for updates. We apologize for the situation, hope you enjoyed the problems.

Hello.

If you are upset about today round, I understand you. Please, downvote this blog instead of the official announcement. The coordinator, writers and tester did a great job making the round. But technical issues erased their effort.

The chain of technical issues leaded to so bad work of the website. This week our server with Polygon system had broken and Mail.Ru quckly replaced it with another one. I forgot to reconfigure Polygon on the new server and it leaded to 502 during the contest. Also today one Codeforces server stopped to respond and I do not know the reason yet (it is first time issue with this server).

Right now I feel myself very upset and thinking about the way to change an approach to have enough time to setup, monitor and develop the system.

Sorry again about it.

  • Vote: I like it
  • -689
  • Vote: I do not like it

Comments Comments (86)
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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Will the contest become unrated? Many people probably gave up after 10-20 minutes of trying and just didn't bother continuing the contest.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -33 Vote: I do not like it

    The server was not responding, but assuming that your brain did not stop, you could keep thinking about the problems and, when server comes back, submit them.

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +38 Vote: I do not like it

      I wasn't able to submit C for over half an hour and I didn't had any other unsolved problem opened. Isn't it an unfair advantage to some ?

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 12   Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

      What about the guy who solved problem 2 minutes after downtime started. He will get same score as guy who solved 30 minutes after downtime started. Incredibly unfair.

      And insanely unfair to the people who solved right before downtime vs. right after downtime.

      It happens so that I finished coding B right after downtime started. I wait 30 minutes to submit and turns out I get WA, meanwhile I was thinking of C. I have to take 15 minutes to readjust myself and find the bug. I end up losing about 300 points because of that, yet someone who solves right before downtime will get all those points? Ridiculous, especially when places 100-300 are decided by only a few hundred points. That's difference between +100 and -100.

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 7   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      edit: server still so laggy my comment posted twice

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

      gardusig, oh really? Say I solved a problem and coded it. Now, I can't submit. Then what should I do? Should I start thinking about the next problem or keep refreshing the page to check whether the server is back or not? Say I keep refreshing and the server comes back after 10 long minutes and I submit, but by then, 10 minutes have gone which I could have used for next problem. OR say I start thinking about next problem, I am concentrating and solving it, and meanwhile the server came back, thousand others submitted and got their points, and the server got stuck again. When I check, it's still down. I have solved 2 problems but couldn't submit any. How is that??? Please tell me, in what way, you are right?

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        7 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

        I was saying about the act of gaving up during the contest. I, personally, think this is very bad habit.

        Does not matter if you can or can not submit the problem. Are you here for solving problems and being thankful of that, or just have some rating?

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          7 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          Well, my comment was not about giving up. I thought you said that the contest should be rated. Sorry that I misunderstood.

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -32 Vote: I do not like it

      Everyone could have done something better or even worst if the server was ok, but one should assume the consequences of giving up in the middle of the contest (there was no concrete position about rating).

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        7 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

        When you go to a restaurant, and they say the food will take 20 minutes to prepare, but nothing has been served for over an hour, are you going to keep waiting?

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          7 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it -14 Vote: I do not like it

          When you really want to eat something that only one restaurant prepare and have even scheduled this, you just go home and keep wishing the food if the food do not come in 30 minutes?

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          7 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          Yes,If you submitted the first problem or paid for the food :))

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          7 years ago, # ^ |
          ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          Repeated

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

    Kobortor Yes u are right most of the people get frustrated and most of the people like us leave the contest straight away

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +22 Vote: I do not like it

    Sir, it is not necessarily unrated. Announcement only confirmed it was undated.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

Well I just hope it will be rated.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +26 Vote: I do not like it

    I hope that too (because my rating would have increased) , but to be fair it should be unrated.

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      Exactly same here i'm projected at a +89 now if i pass the system test cases. But the delay was way too much. Its just that i dont solve C that often was the reason i was hanging around :p. Probably will go unrated though which is sad.2 unrated rounds in a row :/

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -54 Vote: I do not like it

The contest should not be unrated because 2 unrated contests in a row will affect the standard of the Codeforces platform and also the rating of some users including me.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 6   Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

    Many contests went to be unrated even for 10 minutes failure of server. The duration of server failure occurred in this contest is more than 20 minutes Being rated, won't it unfair to the contestants whose gave up during server failure?

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -20 Vote: I do not like it

I have skipped classed twice to improve rating and Round 444 was unrated. Please make this rated :(

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +46 Vote: I do not like it

I guess it's not just a matter of realize if "Making it rated will get my rating up o down". Let's see it from an objective point of view: The time servers went down one might wait for a little time until they would be back, may be for 5 or even 10 minutes. But almost 30 minutes definitely tires people. I think most of people just decided to drop the contest (because one can't even see the statements) and others just continued. Also, people that dropped the contest would have in mind that since the servers went down it would be unrated, so it's not kind of fair to make it rated for everyone. To end this, a percentage of all the people that went ahead and didn't drop the contest have to think and notice that their positions were like that because of all the people that dropped the contest and that might do it well than them. My final conclusion is that it should be unrated.

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7 years ago, # |
← Rev. 3   Vote: I like it -108 Vote: I do not like it

.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 6   Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

    Rough Translation of what this guy said -_- : "F*** you, Mike Mirzayanov. One day, the nation will pay you back for this"

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -74 Vote: I do not like it

      .

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        7 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

        Rough Translation of what this guy said: "F*** you, and did you mispell while creating this id? Can I know? And I sweared on Mike Mirzayanov (Bull Shit) so what, Is he your dad or uncle?"

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

this should be unrated ...

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I don't care will it be rated or not (actually I don't care about rating at all),only funny thing is whenever I should get 70+ it's unrated.We had 2 consecutive unrated rounds in July and I missed over 250+ on those.Problems were nice,although I spent over 1h on E and got the right dp but hadn't time to submit,I wish we had 3h :D.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

I believe the constest should be rated but I understand if it isnt.

Many people who prepare for lag from codeforces servers often open the complete problemset in a separated tab. By doing this those people were affected very little since they could keep working on other problems

Maybe in future contests the bad gateway page could be redirected to the complete problemset so contestants could still have access to the statements, or something like this.

If this preocaution was taken I would see no reason at all to make the contest unrated

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -13 Vote: I do not like it

I think it's not a huge issue as I know most of the contestants open up all the problems in different tabs in the beginning. So the thought process was not interrupted that much.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

The server went down for like 30 minutes, but they gave those minutes back after. It's true that some people just left the contest because of frustration, but some of us really tried to do our best. I think that it is fair to rate it.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +37 Vote: I do not like it

Codeforces became one of the most searched today websites on websitedown.info!

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +50 Vote: I do not like it

Don't be upset, MikeMirzayanov. Things do happen sometimes. And I'm glad you're always trying to make this wonderful website better :)

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    I don't think that's the case, i can't imagine how much work he put to create this site and make it to the top. But lately the website doesn't seem to be evolving .

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Thx MikeMirzayanov for being honest! Respect

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

Don't say sorry Sir , we are happy to have such a polygon like Codeforces in our life, we should thank you may be , even with some human errors ,it's ok .you are the best

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

From website notification: "We apologize for the situation, hope you enjoyed the problems." It's good to know that codeforces have sense of humor xD

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -13 Vote: I do not like it

I had a couple of bad rounds that made my color green and the last two rounds I got three div. 2 problems and both were unrated :(

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

God bless me

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

I was hoping we would have something like this being applied today... :(

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

It would be a good idea to have an auxiliar blog/site(like a Facebook page) to make announcements when the site goes down(The contest won't be rated/It will be back in a few minutes/etc.).This would really help avoiding confusions regarding what will/should happen in situations like these.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I didn't have an open tab with all the problem statements and spent the whole time without access to them. Since I submitted problem C just before the down time, I effectively had 30 minutes less time.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -19 Vote: I do not like it

Will round 446 be rated?

I love this platform, but i love rating more. Ranking make me excited whether in coding or in gaming.

In my opinion, this kind of issue has the same influnce to everyone. Somebody said they haven't preopen the page, but they do have ability to open it, they just haven't do instead of have no ability.

However in some contest the problem description is unintelligible and it still rated. I think this situation more unfair relative to the server crash.

All in all, hope to have more rated contest no matter up or down.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    They DO have the ability to open it? Why do you think so? I can't open the website, how can I open the page? Refresh the website per 5s?

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      7 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -8 Vote: I do not like it

      No.

      I mean they can open it at the beginning.Can't you open the website at the game start? In fact, you do have the ability

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        7 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

        I don't have the habit. And it is not necessary to open every problem's website. I like to open a website and do a problem.

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7 years ago, # |
← Rev. 5   Vote: I like it -14 Vote: I do not like it

A miss of a new peak...4:15 a.m.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +80 Vote: I do not like it

This is what happens if you don't write "Thanks to <...> and MikeMirzayanov for Codeforces and Polygon platforms." in global announcement of round.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

So a notification says that this round will be 'undated', but I wonder, why is this round unrated, while last time there were similar (perhaps even greater) problems with Codeforces, the round was rated? Seems a bit inconsistent.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

What part of the participants are eligible to take part in the final in Moscow?

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

You mean "unrated" not "undated".

Actually I hope it was undated instead of unrated :(

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +80 Vote: I do not like it

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -11 Vote: I do not like it

very baaad, I was in the seventh heaven when I solved 3 tasks, but then ...

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -44 Vote: I do not like it

I would like to propose a solution to this uncomfortable situation: Perhaps make the round rated, but scale down the rating changes to 1/3 or 1/4 of what they would normally be.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

    Why does this have so many downvotes? This is a plausible solution in my opinion:

    • does not cause rating inflation
    • rewards those who performed well but doesn't take too much away from those affected by the crash
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      7 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -12 Vote: I do not like it

      Consider this situation. Two government tax collectors come to the house of everyone in the neighborhood. Some people they only demand a couple dollars from, but they demand 100000 USD from you, because you are the tallest person in the neighborhood. It turns out, the amount you pay is relative to number of meters tall you are. A day later they come back and say "Oh, it's ok, you can just pay us 25000, it is enough". Are you going to pay? Or does your neighborhood say, NO?

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Well I just hope it will be rated.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +7 Vote: I do not like it

Since Mike contribution to cp is ∞, having a mistake and getting -300 downvotes is negligible. Hope to see great rounds (as used to be) in the future

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -40 Vote: I do not like it

well codeforces lost one DIV1 candidate today :-( , because i got rank 66 and my previous rating was 1840 .

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -38 Vote: I do not like it

why not making ratingChange = max(0, actualRatingChange) xD

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

What does the unrated mean?It is UNDATED rather than UNRATED.

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    It it a typing mistake, the round is unrated. Unrated means the codeforces rating of the participants won't change as a result of this competition. It will stay the same no matter if you took part in the competition or not.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +47 Vote: I do not like it

Methinks there should have been a testing round after the server got replaced. It's quite predictable that something gets broken when hw is replaced (at least for me, be glad the problem isn't missing drivers).

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

There are no ups without falls.

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7 years ago, # |
← Rev. 5   Vote: I like it -50 Vote: I do not like it

Writer of problem nuber D(Div 2) should get award for such kind of poor problem discription..... :(

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    7 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

    Problems were really well written. maybe just do some englishforces round.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -10 Vote: I do not like it

I thought if this round will be unrated it will be fiasco. It's fiasco, bro.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Again unrated contest , when CF will be fixed?!!??!

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Its OK, as the problem is going to be fixed and round 4 is going to be held, but please, while estimating, ignore round 3's results,or at least give more importance to round 4's results.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Everybody makes mistakes, the important thing is that you are going to correct the mistake.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +67 Vote: I do not like it 
If you are upset about today round, I understand you. Please, downvote this blog instead of the official announcement. The coordinator, writers and tester did a great job making the round. But technical issues erased their effort.

The chain of technical issues leaded to so bad work of the website. This week our server with Polygon system had broken and Mail.Ru quckly replaced it with another one. I forgot to reconfigure Polygon on the new server and it leaded to 502 during the contest. Also today one Codeforces server stopped to respond and I do not know the reason yet (it is first time issue with this server).

Right now I feel myself very upset and thinking about the way to change an approach to have enough time to setup, monitor and develop the system.

Sorry again about it.

I appreciate Mike and all the work that goes into Codeforces and I know this message had to be written in a hurry. And I also know that bilingualism is hard—I learned to speak my first foreign language as an adult and it consumed quite a lot of time and energy. Furthermore, I am grateful for the various English translations here.

So I offer some suggestions on more idiomatic English:


If you are upset about [today's] round, I understand []. Please, downvote this blog [post] instead of the official announcement. The coordinator, writers and tester did a great job [creating|preparing] the round. But technical issues [wasted] their effort[s].

[A] chain of technical issues [led] to the website [working badly]. This week our server with [the] Polygon system [broke|failed] and Mail.Ru quickly replaced it with another one. I forgot to reconfigure Polygon on the new server and it [led] to 502 [errors] during the contest. Also today[,] one Codeforces server stopped [responding] and I do not know the reason yet (it is [the] first time [we have had an] issue with this server).

Right now I feel [] very upset and [I am] thinking about [ways] to change [our] approach to have enough time to setup, monitor and develop the system.

Sorry again about [this].
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    7 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -26 Vote: I do not like it

    Thank you for sharing with us what is surely helpful, especially for those who aren't originally English men, like me.

    And I hope you completing your help by discussing something:

    In the last section, before Mr. Mike apologised again, isn't it right to keep "I am thinking about [the] way to change [an] approach to..." as he wrote it?

    When he said "the" he probably meant "the way that changes...".

    And when he said "an" he probably meant a specific approach in his mind, because there probably are other approaches that aren't have to be changed.

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -17 Vote: I do not like it

This is my first contest. ...... Then 502

......

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7 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +2 Vote: I do not like it

Most people are bashing CodeForces for the server issue. Being a regular competitive programmer for almost 2 years and also a participant of this contest, I understand the reason of frustration quite clearly. Even I was also a victim of the server down issue as I had to submit problem C almost 1 hour after I had actually finished coding it. However, as these website and server issues are also part of programming( not contest programming obviously :P ), I think we should consider this technical failure as an isolated incident rather than an unpardonable offense. Of course, this type of unexpected incident should never be allowed to happen in future, but nevertheless CodeForces has been doing a wonderful job hosting contests at such huge scale and I personally think this site is amazing and unique in many ways. So, keep up the good work people. Hoping for a great rated contest in the next round. Fingers crossed. :D

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