I usually don't like writing negative blogs, but after seeing some of the comments on recent posts, I feel we need to talk about the direction our community is heading.
It started when I noticed user monkey_is_back replying to me with an offensive picture. Curious, I decided to check his other comments to see if it was a one-off mistake. Unfortunately, I found a pattern of pure toxicity and racism that I think crosses every line a competitive programmer should have:
- Targeting a newcomer with racism: "Hello, bloody indian. I am from your father country."
- Abusing someone trying to post solution of a problem if it will be helpful to someone: "Stop posting this shit you bloody sun of a beach"
- Insulting another user directly in a joke thread: "Because alice is a hoe like GHOUS1425."
- Using racial slurs while mocking someone's achievement: "Yo N1GGA, how you managed to get -ve rating bruh? Big congo btw"
We are all here to learn, compete, and grow. Comments like these don't just break the rules; they actively discourage beginners and create a hostile environment for everyone. It’s the opposite of sportsmanship.
I urge monkey_is_back to reflect on this and stop. I also want to ask the community and the admins (MikeMirzayanov, Vladosiya): What can we do to prevent this?
Should there be stricter penalties for first-time hate speech? Is there a better way to report such users quickly? I believe we can all agree this is unacceptable, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to fix it.
UPD: The same user has returned with a new handle: doantunglamdatrang, and is now posting even more offensive comments. This pattern of toxicity continues.
Solutions (from comments)
- IP-based bans: Instead of just banning accounts, consider IP bans after a certain number of reports (e.g., $$$n$$$ reports) to prevent users from simply creating new accounts.
- Keyword-based harassment detection: Implement a simple filter that flags comments containing common offensive words or racial slurs.
- NLP-based harassment detection: Use a more advanced natural language processing model that can understand context and detect harassment even without explicit keywords.
- Comment restrictions for new/unrated users: Prevent unrated users with negative contribution from commenting until they have participated in at least one or two rated rounds. Exceptions could be made for special "announcement only" accounts like MidnightCodeCup, JetBrains, etc.
- Comment restrictions for low contribution.: Comments of low contribution users will be once reviewed by mods and only than posted.
That guy has a few accounts, and maybe all of them have been banned now. It's ok to ban his IP I think.
As far as i'm concerned, a great solution is to automatically delete those illegal comments when they receive a certain number of complaints. For example, if one's comment is complained more than five or ten times, the comment will be deleted by the system, and if one's comments are deleted more than 5 times, the account will be banned by the system.
But cant that be used maliciously also? What if there is a person who hate you can't he just create 5 or more accounta and report on you? Womt this cause your account which tbh wouldn't have even committed any offense to be banned? How will you address such scenarios? How can we make sure that the reports coming in are valid and need attention or immediate action?
As far as I know only people with rating higher than CM can report.
that's exactly how it's done(as far as I know), and guess what, those people report comments which they just don't like, leading to false positives, some cheaters even report, just because they get the permission from being CM+, and most of the CM+ people ignore troll comments, only report what they just angry about
What!? CM+ can report comment? :o Seems that high rating people here really have "special treatment" :(
I wonder if I reach CM+ someday, the 10 minute rate limitation can also be lifted x)
yes, that is right, high rated people have that "special treatment", and not just that, but high rated people also hate low rated, at least you don't be like them ;(, and about the permissions(as far as I know):
expert+ — participate in near problem annotation program, source: https://codeforces.me/settings/wallets
CM+ — report comments, edit tags
M+ — propose a contest(div.1/div.2), create public groups
GM+ — trust a user button, users trusted by GM+ can post blogs while being unrated
these are all as far as I know
also CM+ can edit tags on some problems.
thanks, added that too, I wonder if there are other things
IP bans are worse than useless because of dynamic IPs and VPNs. We need to start harassing him back. Make it so he's terrified to make another account.
I mean I personally have not seen any of his comments for a few days. So maybe he has decided to give up.
he's back, unfortunately
Exactly! I feel like Codeforces admins shadow banned his second alt doantunglamdatrang (as I can see it but I cannot see their comments). However after not getting any engagement on that account for a while, he has clearly just decided to curating a new alt gooner_boy and continue the cycle of toxicity.
I have no real idea what the ultimate solution for this sort of behavior is. I feel like maybe Codeforces could "shadowban" them, but also set up some AI comment bots to give the account the engagement that it wants to see. This would prevent regular users from having to see the malicious comments, while stopping the user from just curating another account (as they still get attention they want, artificially).
In hindsight, there has been quite a few previous incidents of spammers on Codeforces in the past, and most of them have given up eventually. Hopefully this one will do the same.
And he is back again with different handle: doantunglamdatrang, and with worse comment than ever!
I don't think IP ban will do justice as many would have shared IP and also can easily bypassed.
My proposed solution is to make unrated person with negative contribution unable to comment until at least one/two rated round. (Exception could be made for special "announcement only" account like MidnightCodeCup, JetBrains, etc)
I don't think it's fair this way, because I need ask a question: https://codeforces.me/blog/entry/151921#comment-1353072 and then what to do if I can't post? Also, I think he will stop from now on, like all the other trolls in the past
I think Codeforces can introduce a weekly megathread for common doubts, as many other communities do.
yeah he was lowkey harrasing this one newbie across multiple posts
I think we should all work together to raise awareness because people can easily create new accounts and continue this behavior.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by SHADOWEEN (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Auto comment: topic has been updated by SHADOWEEN (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Auto comment: topic has been updated by SHADOWEEN (previous revision, new revision, compare).
yeah maybe swear words and other ways of saying them should be flagged and a few times should be ban
also he is getting like -20 contribution in less than a day so that could be a way to ban, if u have really low contribution over time
The user has been disabled now but it seems that whoever it is will just keep on coming back with many alts.
yes, and we are trying to prevent this!
Auto comment: topic has been updated by SHADOWEEN (previous revision, new revision, compare).
the most important thing to do is not feed the troll.
Do not engage with them.
No matter how witty your reply is, keep it to yourself because those replies are exactly what they want. Depriving them of that satisfaction will make them get bored and go troll elsewhere.
Fuck off nigga. Let us sleep peacefully
and the criminal himself is back!
i think the best way to prevent these things is to make a new system where you have to solve at least 50 questions before being able to comment or post blogs and do those problems without being able to look at the AC codes... i think even a troll isn't as unemployed as that to do something like that for an account that will last only one or two weeks maximum