I would like to start this blog with an open question — SHOULD KNOWN CHEATERS WHO HAVE LEGIT SKIPPED ACCOUNTS AND HAVE OPENLY ADMITED CHEATING IN THE PAST BE ALLOWED TO BE GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE AND TRUSTED AGAIN?

If your answer was yes to the question, please answer this follow up — WHAT SHOULD BE THE CRITERIA FOR FORGIVENESS? GIVE THE NEXT X CONTESTS WITH HONESTY (WHICH YOU WILL NEVER KNOW BECAUSE THEY WILL BE WAY MORE CAREFUL NOW)? OR BE FORGIVEN FOR JUST Y NUMBER OF SKIPS?

I would urge the readers to answer these 2 questions before reading ahead. Do comment your opinions.

Starting with the main theme of the blog, I recently looked at the Top Contributors charts of Codeforces and saw a rather familiar name who just made it to top 10 — chromate00. He is quite popular as a contest setter within the community. However, when I looked at his account, he got a full 3 pages of skipped submissions. Statistically speaking, that's more than the number of ACs 90% of the people below Pupil ever got. Going through his blogs I figured out he also accepted that he cheated in the past and now wears "moving on" as a badge of honour. Since he admitted it for a fact himself, it's not a matter of question if he cheated or not but a known fact now. Yet, he gets treated differently from other cheaters and even gets to set contests which is something which I feel should be extremely free from those with even allegations of cheating on them. How would you know if he is not selling/sharing the problem ideas to someone known when he has shown those tendencies of dishonesty in the past?

As if this wasn't enough, most of his blogs that got most of the upvotes and brought him to the top of contribution charts were on exposing cheaters. There is a popular saying in India — "Hypocrisy ki bhi seema hoti hai" ("There is a limit to hypocrisy").

Also, if you think chromate00 should be forgiven then would you think the same of other past cheaters like arnabmanna? Or if you think being active in the community should be the criteria then what would you say about Psychotic_D? Do their actions deserve to be forgotten again?

PS — This blog doesn't aim to defame anyone. All I wish to do with it is raising genuine questions to know what do you guys thing should be the right thing to do. Should cheaters be forgiven? Should their past actions be forgotten and should they be given chances of something as sensitive as problem setting? Hope to have a healthy discussion in the comments.