brdy's blog

Is codeforce Machiavelli
By brdy, history, 6 years ago, In English

I am sure we are all familiar with Machiavelli's book The Prince. He says ends justify the means. But higher rating doesn't justify current system to handle cheaters. Cheater can send in code and get his rating skipped if he do bad, and if he do well he profit. We need negative penalty rating and banning cheaters. Ends don't justify means here, because higher rating through cheater is meaningless.

Fair people suffer (get lower overall standing) because cheaters boosting themselves up. Stop this cancerous behaviour on cf.

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6 years ago, # |
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Auto comment: topic has been updated by brdy (previous revision, new revision, compare).

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6 years ago, # |
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LMAO. So what do you propose to stop cheaters?

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
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    "We need negative penalty rating and banning cheaters."

    Like bruh I don't understand this bs "skipped verdict". Original poster of code (the person who subsequent people copied) maybe only deserves to be skipped, and should get warning (multiple warnings = some rating penalty or ban). But people who copy from them should get negative rating or ban.

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6 years ago, # |
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Who knew Machiavelli was so hot?

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6 years ago, # |
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Rating is just a number. Try to enjoy all the contests!

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
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    Oh, shut the fuck up.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
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    While I agree with the general intention behind the "rating is just a number" statement, there are some things to consider. Sometimes people want to have specific goals set for themselves, and one of the easiest ways to set a goal is to use quantifiable benchmarks. A benchmark like "Getting top 30 in ICPC World Finals" is probably a bit hard to shoot for, since WF happens once a year, so there is a lot of variance with performance. In that regard, one of the best quantifiable metrics for performance with [relatively] low variance is CodeForces ratings, since they hold contests more frequently than any other site. So, it's pretty reasonable to care about ratings here if you are using them to set goals for yourself, and brdy's point about cheaters detracting from rating is still very valid.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
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    rating isn't just a number. if it was just a number, would i get any emotions during contest?

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
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      If increasing numbers in my profile is the only source of pleasure for me, I would definitely switched to some clicker games.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
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        Haha, why don't you ever 'clicker game' your bank account.

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6 years ago, # |
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My opinion: So I don't think that an advice like, "Rating is just a number. Try to have fun. Relax." etc. is fair. Ratings try to accurately measure your skill against the rest of the competition. And if someone cares about that, existence of cheaters will clearly irritate/anger/frustrate that user. I think it is fair that someone cares about ratings (if he didn't, he can just not compete and do problems for fun, for no rating). That being said, I welcome cheaters. I think the biggest incentive for cheaters to cheat is to accomplish what they cannot accomplish without cheating. I believe this sort of thinking ultimately is disadvantageous when compared to not cheating. And that person will unknowingly suffer the negative effects throughout life, not just coding. Let them cheat. If they get 4000 rating, everyone will know and he can be ridiculed by everyone.

For these reasons, I don't believe someone gains anything by cheating that he couldn't have otherwise gained. Sure, he gets rating. But what is the value? Peer recognition? Sure, maybe if you're 2000 and your friends are 1500, they might be wow'ed. But if you do anything significant, I'm sure you will start to get accusations rather than praise. And even if he can hide behind his fraudulent rating, it will take a lot of effort to delude himself that he earned every single rating point that he gained.

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4 years ago, # |
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I love how this has bitset as one of the tags.

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4 years ago, # |
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can send in code and get his rating skipped if he do bad,

What does this mean? Is there any deregister button?

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    No, but if you spam clarifications requesting to be unregistered eventually they will do it. The guy meant send in a code that will help him do the spamming.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    IIRC, if you get caught plagiarizing then you get skipped verdict. But does not get any real negative impact (no ban, no rating decrease).

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