If you don't wanna see some butthurt, skip this post.
1 December: I open main page of codeforces to see a picture of some anime girl taking half of my 1920x1080 screen. I got disgusted back than, but hatred for anime is my personal opinion, but IMO this picture was way too big to be on the main page of CF(it was the biggest one I saw on CF, if i remember correctly).
2 December: after nice Trial Round of NEERC I was looking forward to a CF round. I was not in my hometown and had internet which was LTE, but still was kind of laggy and slow. I was checking in in the hotel at the time of start of the round.
So the round starts, problem A loads, and here we go. There is another f***g anime picture right in front of me (which loads slowly because of internet, and the statement isn't loading until the picture loads (it generally isn't that way though)). Name -> Picture -> Statement. At this point i instantly added some curse words in my template (luckily i decided not to compete, so those didn't make it in public), after that i went straight for problem E, since I couldn't code. "The statement cannot be displayed correctly". Whatever. I open problem D. Another f****g anime picture. At this pointed I decided, fudge it i'll skip this round since I didn't feel that well anyway, and had no desire to solve problems of such an author.
One more thing: vintage_Vlad_Makeev is my teammate in ACM ICPC, so he saw my laptop's screen when I opened that statement, and he was really surprised. Probably he had no idea about the pictures(I don't know for sure because it's not very polite to talk to coordinator of CF about CF during the round).
To sum things up, I do believe authors should have freedom to make almost any legend within bounds, probably should have freedom to decide which tests are pretests, and maybe something else. But in my opinion, this is too much. The legends have the right to exist, cause you can skip it, the dialogs at the top of the statement have the right to exist, because you automatically skip them, without thinking. But this is way too intrusive. What next? Flashing GIFS at the top of the statement?
I would want to say, that this is not a hate post, but, unfortunately, I can't.
Why was the trial round nice?
Probably the queue worked
The image in the blog post is 3.8 MB. Amazing.
Yeah, man, I tried to say the same and got downvoted. Maybe they listen someone with red rating (and looks like whey do)
It's not about the color, it's about the way you said the idea. A single line of saying that the picture is trash won't do the job.
It is irritating, you guys are in Div.1 so you must have not seen div2.B problem but it was like
"..some story or some bullsh*t..." "..solve this codeforces problem for Anime Character..." totally unnecessary and useless,makes me want to hate anime in general. it's time to stop
So, what is your claim, summarized in a single sentence? "Do not use anime pictures in statements"? "Do not use big pictures in statements so it loads on slow internet"?
As the author of Codeforces Round #419, which probably pioneered this whole "anime pictures in statements" fiasco (Codeforces Round 426 (Div. 1), Codeforces Round 447 (Div. 2), Codeforces Round 449 (Div. 1)), I feel like I have an obligation to weigh in.
My contest was rather well-received; the announcement received 724 upvotes, which was much higher than average. There were but a few complaints about the anime pictures; and, if the comments are to be believed, most people even loved them. I believe I crossed the line when I added the same pictures to the editorial—thanks to dalex for pointing it out, if rather abrasively; and I realized my mistake and removed them immediately.
The issue is always going to be one of professionalism. Adding (any—drawings, clipart, etc.) pictures to the statement that do not immediately supplement understanding of the problem is always risky, and it's always a balancing act. If done poorly, it comes off as childish and even cringe-worthy. The most recent round has definitely given this impression, what with the, as you described,
in the announcement and completely unnecessary pictures in the problem statements. The trouble is exacerbated when the problem is shoehorned to fit the picture or story, rather than the other way around; it's always obvious when this happens, and always makes the problem frustratingly more difficult to understand. It's obvious when the author just wanted to throw the anime in there when a formal statement would have been much better; the problem statement feels unnatural and forced. (You can spot many examples of this in the problems today; "arbitrary operations on n talismans", when it is obviously just an array, "playing a game in order to determine who can use the kitchen", etc.)
It's extremely frustrating when this happens, especially to people who already dislike the theme of the contest. It's almost as if the theme is ruining otherwise perfectly good problems.
I took all these into consideration when writing my contest; I can't say how well I did. (You be the judge—you joined that contest.) I had commissioned an artist to do the artwork, so that the pictures would fit the statements exactly and at least serve some purpose (e.g. 815E - Karen and Neighborhood has identical houses in a row, which you will never see just scouring the Internet. Someone had to specifically draw that with that detail in mind.) All the statements, at least to me, felt natural, as most of them actually arose naturally and did not come from a formal statement first. (e.g. 815D - Karen and Cards was a real game I used to play with my little sister.) The pictures were as neutral as possible; I had to repeatedly stress to the artist that they had to be professional, and nothing even slightly suggestive was allowed.
I don't discourage problem setters from adding images to their contests. But, please, exercise some discernment. Will it really make the contest better and more memorable? Remember, the contest isn't just for you; they're being given to the whole community, and people aren't coming here to see anime, they're coming here to solve problems.
I think the stories of CF's problems need to be more funny. I like this picture. Like my head img, I like anime very much. Though the picture is useless sometime, I think it can catch my eyes, and catch more people's eyes, who may come here first even only once. This picture will bring CF more users.
On the other hand, it's hard and tired for me to deal with these problems. The picture can make me relax. It make me happy and excited, and can do better in this test. I think it is necessary to be exist.
Back in the days anime got demolished in Japan because of a serial (pedophile) killer is also an anime lover. ( wiki link, only JP / CH though )
*Looks at recent CodeForces round.
i am scared of weebs,not because of this,but because of their affection with imaginary girls in general xD
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I think I might scare you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
do you also wish to impregnate an imaginary woman?
Is there no censorship on this website??
I have this kind of picture!
I am AHO!
actually i think it's just about the testing queue that makes most people annoyed.
many rounds before has long, useless statement & pictures, but i don't remember many comments argue to delete those things, and ask the writer to shorten the statement in few lines.
just a bigger picture makes all so frustrating? lul
Pretty sure CF was trying not to be too harsh to the authors and that's why it's 1/2-rated instead of 1/3-rated.
Dimitri Finds Out AtCoder Problem Statement is Simple
https://youtu.be/n6H7iyE6XXY