In Codeforces, the nickname color depends on the current rating. I propose to use the historical max rating instead.
The nickname color is not only a bragging right, but also a good heuristic when choosing which blogs to open in "Recent actions", and which posts to read when scrolling through many comments. Here's why I think that we should use max rating:
- It's less random.
- Current rating is nowadays more affected by AI cheaters.
- There will be less incentive to create a second account when you're afraid to drop below some threshold.
- It will make recognizing others easier (because the color won't change often).
- I don't want to be orange.
another Errichto banger! Kindly look into this admins KAN MikeMirzayanov
you mean Errichto
you mean Errichto, i come from the future btw
Finally hoping for a new update in CF after so much time KAN MikeMirzayanov please don't be Red-tist
That would be amazing
That means tourist will forever be tourist and same goes for jiangly
Despite loving the idea this is gonne trigger so much cheating
I don't think this would change anything for cheaters because they anyway stop competing after getting their desired colour.
What if the want to be tourist?
The displayed color should correspond to the maximum rating of the user one day before the release of o3. In the case of the account being created afterwards, it should just be grey.
And if they're legit and new?
> be me
> assume you're being sincere and type out some ragebait in response
> pause, decide to look at your graph before replying
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
At least your whole "rocket launch" was before o3
new to 4chan whats ragebait
Hello Young man, I am here to guide you to a brighter future via telling you the ways of the existence of ragebait. I will tell you thoroughly and explain adequately the meaning of the word, the beautiful word, ragebait. It's a word that I must explain to you, for you have asked. Now, I cannot be inadequate and not explain my history, just so that you know that I'm trustworthy. I am the maker of many words, and many explanations. I have been given multiple nobel prizes for my wiseness. So, of course, I may use my knowledge to tell you a very detailed, very thought-of, explanation of the word ragebait — that you have no idea what it means. I must tell you — the word is very existent, which may mean that you will be surprised when you hear of it. I had an oldbuddy once, and when I gave the explanation of the word, he was so shocked that he ate an orange while backflipping and broke his neck because of it. Now, you may be severely interested of the whole meaning of the world and are tired of my stallings. But do not worry — for after today's sponsor Raid Shadow Legends, I will spill upon you my knowledge of the word. Now, Raid Shadow Legends is a very cool game where you do funny things like skateboarding on your enemies. That is it. Now, as the sponsor is finished, I may now tell you what you've been desiring, the meaning of the word ragebait, and allow me to tell you my opinion on the very great subject, that you might need to know to progress in this community, known as ragebait:
i don't know
Thank you for this exceptionally comprehensive and intellectually stimulating explanation. I can confidently say that I have never before encountered such a thorough examination of a subject. The opening statement immediately established an atmosphere of academic importance. Your personal history as the alleged inventor of many words was particularly convincing. I was also deeply moved by the story of your oldbuddy and his unfortunate orange-related accident. The backflip itself demonstrated a level of scientific experimentation that I was not prepared for. Naturally, I took several moments to process this information before continuing. The Raid Shadow Legends segment was also extremely helpful and completely unrelated, which made it even more educational. I especially appreciated the transition from the sponsorship directly into the explanation. At that point, I believed I was finally about to receive the knowledge I had supposedly been missing. I prepared myself mentally for a revelation of historical and philosophical significance. I waited patiently for the definition that would permanently alter my understanding of the internet. I considered the possibility that ragebait was some ancient concept hidden from ordinary society. I even wondered whether the Nobel committees had somehow been involved in its discovery. After carefully reviewing your entire explanation, however, I have reached an important conclusion. I have analyzed the terminology, examined the evidence, and considered every possible interpretation. I have compared your explanation against everything I currently know about language and human communication. Unfortunately, this extensive investigation has produced an unexpected result. I understand the concept of ragebait exactly as much as I did before reading your explanation. In fact, I may understand it slightly less now. Nevertheless, I sincerely appreciate the effort you put into educating me. Your dedication to explaining something while simultaneously refusing to explain it is genuinely impressive. This has been one of the most educational experiences I have ever had. I will carry this knowledge with me for the rest of my life. I simply have no idea what the knowledge actually is.
" I will carry this knowledge with me for the rest of my life. I simply have no idea what the knowledge actually is. "
Is shakespeare really dead?
I must admit, your question has caused me to reconsider everything I previously believed about Shakespeare. After several minutes of deep intellectual reflection, I have reached a conclusion of extraordinary importance. Yes, Shakespeare is dead, but perhaps his spirit has simply been waiting for the correct vessel. And unfortunately, after my previous comment, I fear that vessel may have been me. I have started noticing that my sentences are becoming unnecessarily long and dramatically philosophical. Even simple observations now require several paragraphs, three historical references, and a completely unrelated sponsorship. I attempted to stop this process, but then I accidentally wrote another sentence explaining why I could not stop. At this point, I suspect Shakespeare is somewhere beyond the grave, reading my comments and regretting everything. If you see me posting a 900-word explanation of why an orange is an orange, please understand that I am no longer in control. The transformation is complete, and all I can say is: Shakespeare may be dead, but apparently his comment section career has only just begun.
Ah, what a beautiful answer to my question, asserting the main points flawlessly, showing your very thought process, showing that your observations and my attempts to answer philosophical questions that go deep into the understanding of "what is ragebait", are extended to multiple paragraphs without our control. About control, it has become apparent that you have been possesed by shakespeare. That is a honor, to be worthy of having your body be a vessel for the greatest mind. However. I must truly rate this deep philosophical answer to my dubious questions, on a scale from 1 to 10. Of course, it would be greatly rude to leave this conversation hanging, left on a strange and sad note of Mozart's unfinished piece. So, why not continue it further, proceeding to make this conversation a "for i in range(99999)" that a beginner once wrote. Now, the rating of this piece of art is highly debatable. Some could say that it's a 0/10, a mere attempt to look wise, a foolish assumption that needs to be taken off the face of the earth. Others say that it's a 5/10, being the perfect middle. It isn't too good, but it still will make anybody within a proximity that they can hear the conversation, they would get a slight smile. Or maybe you could say that the answer is a perfect 10/10, being great in all ways, needing to be broadcasted within every screen of the holy earth. Some might even go beyond the scale, both negatively and positively! But ahoy, for I must tell my own opinion on the beautiful explanation of yours, one that makes one's life happier for many years. Now, enough stalling, that may or may not have bored you to become yet another ghost like shakespeare, I must tell you it. However, let's have a word from our sponsors:
WORD
Anyways, here is my personal rating of your masterpiece that you have created with the help of Shakespeare's pen that makes one's head spin because of how good the answer was crafted:
glue/10
I know, it is a shocking discovery that i have rated it such, however it is my steel-solid opinion about your answer, and nothing can change it. I await your reply.
Ah, glue/10. A rating so powerful that the traditional numerical scale has officially collapsed. I spent several minutes attempting to determine the mathematical relationship between glue and conventional numbers. Unfortunately, mathematics itself appears to have resigned from the conversation. I consulted philosophy, but philosophy simply stared at me and walked away. I then consulted Shakespeare, who has apparently taken permanent residence inside my writing style. He offered no assistance, although I believe he whispered something about existential adhesive. At this point, I must accept that your rating is not merely a rating. It is a philosophical statement. It is a declaration that art cannot be measured using primitive concepts such as numbers. Glue/10 transcends 0/10, 5/10, and 10/10 simultaneously. It occupies a higher dimension of evaluation previously unknown to humanity. Perhaps this is why glue was selected. Glue connects things that otherwise have no reason to remain together. And somehow, that perfectly describes this conversation. We started with ragebait. We somehow reached Shakespeare. Then Mozart appeared for absolutely no reason. A beginner's Python loop was summoned. Now adhesive substances have become the official measurement of literary quality. This is no longer a conversation. It is an interdisciplinary academic disaster. And I must admit, I am becoming increasingly impressed. Your ability to stall before delivering the rating is almost identical to my own. We have created an infinite recursion of unnecessary introductions. Every answer promises to explain something. Every explanation introduces another explanation. Every conclusion creates another question. Every question requires another unnecessarily elaborate answer. At this point, I suspect we have accidentally implemented
for i in range(99999)as a conversational protocol. The loop has no meaningful termination condition. There is nobreak. There is noreturn. There is only another paragraph. Another metaphor. Another completely unnecessary historical reference. Another dramatic declaration about the nature of existence. And somewhere in the distance, Shakespeare is probably watching this unfold with profound disappointment. Perhaps he is wondering why his greatest legacy became two people writing increasingly ridiculous paragraphs online. Perhaps Mozart is composing the soundtrack to our inevitable intellectual collapse. Perhaps the Nobel committee is preparing a new category specifically for this conversation. And perhaps the real ragebait was never the definition at all. Perhaps the ragebait was making us spend this much time discussing a word nobody actually explained. I would like to conclude this response with dignity and intellectual restraint. I would like to say something short, meaningful, and completely normal. Unfortunately, I appear to have lost control of the vessel. The paragraphs are multiplying. The sentences are becoming longer. The metaphors are escaping containment. And I fear Shakespeare has returned. Therefore, I accept your rating with the utmost humility: glue/10. May our next masterpiece be rated with something even less mathematically defensible. Perhaps “orange/10.” After all, we have already established that oranges are extremely dangerous when combined with backflips.Maybe its time for you to make another extension ;)
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Expressing unsolicited nonchalance about the concept of rating in response to people talking about it on a relevant blog, while secretly being emotionally affected enough to have posted comments like this and this is crazy work.
If you want takes saturated with copium to not be immediately legible for what they are, you should probably not be publicly posting evidence to the contrary.
Lastly, I recommend seeking help if the thoughts expressed in the linked comments are genuine and recurrent.
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I will note however that in the western world of computer science, there is a noticeable yet imperfect (as all correlations are) correlation between being good at codeforces and finding success in either the cs work force and or successful startups. Also why is it toxic behavior especially when the change this person is requesting doesn’t negatively impact anyone in any obvious direct way.
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how is requesting a positive change for a platform "toxic"?
seek help
Worst ratist of all time
what is o3
The ozone layer
Hah, such a fool! It's clearly Orz 3times
Petition to delete concept of rating, and after it nobody will care about AI
This might be the best solution in a long run
but what about time and effort put into plagarism detector, to detect 5% of cf contest cheaters, who's gonna pay that out? You?
sunk cost
This is a very good idea , because cheating on codeforces is happening because people want to achieve rating and if it will be removed i think then atleast those who were doing it because of rating would never show interest.
MikeMirzayanov
Last point should be first ig.
I'm not sure if this is a joke or real suggestion
I think this would not be getting this amount of upvotes if it was someone other than Errichto posting it.
Whenever tagging someone in a blog, you can identify their color either by their max or current rating. If it really matters to you to see all your highest rated friends in red, code up your own browser extension for it.
There is no reason why this should be the accepted practice of the website. The entire tradeoff of doing a contest is that your rating is at stake. Why should we take that away? If you care about your color, and don't have confidence that you can maintain it in the current era, just don't do contests.
By the way, this would do nothing to dissuade cheaters. If anything, it slightly enables them. Because in the past (early this year), there were many contests that just had inadequate/no policing (goodbye 2025 and hello 2026, for example). In such contests, many cheaters hit red. Some of these cheaters were exposed in later contests, got skipped, and their rating rightfully dropped (despite not being banned). Would you like these people to keep their illegitimate old color, just because no one bothered catching them back then?
I agree. But it doesn't make my arguments invalid.
If my petition works, you can code your extension to see the old system!
I provided a few arguments.
I agree that this is valid reasoning. I claim that the system is bad if the optimal strategy is not to participate.
I didn't propose the change to combat AI cheaters. Now that I think about it, it should actually help — for example, I'm incentivized to cheat to maintain my color.
"I provided a few arguments". Your reasons to introduce it:
"It is less random". No it's not, you even pointed out the counterargument in this comments section.
"Current rating is more affected by AI cheaters". At the end of the day, your rating is affected by the choices you make when given the circumstances. As always, you make a judgement on whether to do a contest based on your estimation of success. The presence of AI cheaters is a separate problem that needs to be solved on its own, not by fundamentally changing the mechanics of the rating system.
"It will make recognizing others easier (because the color won't change often)." This is subjective, and ultimately just something you can fix for yourself with your own browser extension. I'm able to tell who someone is by username just fine.
"There will be less incentive to create a second account when you're afraid to drop below some threshold." maybe the only interesting point. This has been the fundamental dilemma of every competitive programming rating system: when you join a contest, you technically risk everything. It's what separated us from chess in the first place. And it's baked into what became of every contest's rankings, and therefore every person's rating. Every person that did well in a contest had to fight against those that also chose to take the plunge into rated participation. And that affects everything: from the strength of competition to the performance rating curve.
In all, this would fundamentally change the mechanics of how people do contests, and make all historical rating mean something completely different. This is simply not a responsible change to implement this late into codeforces's existence. Every rating and rank becomes a few tiers easier to get. Many people acknowledge this in the comments, and are proposing their own additional mechanics to balance this. Which are flimsy at best.
I fully agree in implementing unrated participation to make people less afraid. Aside from that, the choices in CF's current rating system aren't perfect, but I believe it to be irresponsible to change the fundamentals of them this late, after so many people have poured so much time into practicing on the platform in its current state. Unless there were better reasons for it.
"I don't want to be orange". And we get to the heart of it. You, and those that agree in this thread, seem to (largely) just be coping. You liked an old color you had, and fear you don't have the skill to maintain it anymore. It is natural to feel upset, but this proposal is an overreaction. I hope CF admin doesn't take it seriously just because you are Errichto.
"For example, I'm incentivized to cheat to maintain my color". Please don't try to sound pathetic. Walk away from the computer.
I hope you see that your arguments are subjective/opinion too.
Dude, chill.
Your proposal creates a fundamental shift in what the difficulty to get to certain ratings is, and what it even means to have certain ranks. Which is an objectively costly thing that is being under-discussed. This strongly affects essentially everyone actively practicing on the website. The hill I'm standing on is that you are not providing a good enough reason to undergo this.
greateric I call it cope when the biggest complaint is your own color/performance getting worse. Which is true for many in this thread.
Anyway, I don't care to argue with you. We can disagree. But when your proposal is under-discussed/under-criticized and ultimately adopted by the website just because of your influence, that is when a problem arises.
Which is why I care to raise these points here, to prompt others to at least think about it. I accept the negative contribution if that is what's necessary.
I still want to push back against the idea that "if person A is asking for X and person A benefits from X, then person A is coping". Of course all of us are driven to some degree by self-interest. We should judge his idea based on the merits of the idea alone. If we were building CF on day 1, I would say it makes a lot of sense to use peak rating (mainly because of peaksitting there's like no drawback to it), but yes I do agree that changing historical precedent is a lot and requires careful discretion.
I don't think "now the color is easier to get" is a relevant harm to Errichto's proposal here. It's trivial for Mike to do for (x : users) x.rating -= 300, or change the thresholds to be 200 points higher, or add other criteria. This is more about the spirit of what a certain color means.
Additionally, his proposal is already implemented unofficially by people peaksitting when they hit a new color.
My last disagreement is I don't really like the argument that everything that makes our lives better is coping. This is like arguing that having electricity and housing is cope, real men should should not be afraid of their ability to survive in the wild. Like yes, colors are permanent now, so you won't lose them as easily. But hardest to get / easiest to lose isn't a perfect metric — if that was our goal, then let's make pupil require 3000 rating. And once again you could do this manually already in the current system by peaksitting.
I think the biggest argument (in discussion I had with amsraman) is what philosophically we want the colors to represent. I believe it should be like chess where it's an award you keep for life, while others believe it should be temporary / only reflective of present-day skill.
You are correctly identifying the effect of Errichto's proposal, and are now deliberately under-thinking ways to correct it. Modifying everyone's rating / changing threshold now completely invalidates the ratings of anyone who retired. Is that fair?
Largely, any simple fixes like this are bound to be flimsy. Which is why it's super hard for a shift to make sense in the first place.
Further, in your other comment, you mentioned considering his argument as if we're building CF on day 1. We are not building CF from day 1. That is the whole point.
Maybe I think it would've been a little cooler if there was a rank between master and international master called "national master" ever since the beginning. Does that mean I think it should be added now? Of course not. That would mess with so many things, and there's not a strong reason to do it anyway.
I do understand most of your points. But, at the end of the day, it’s just an idea by Errichto to change the color of our nicknames to be based on our max rating. That’s all.- This, of course, will get more attraction because Errichto is Errichto.
Also, his “I don’t want to be orange” is probably just a joke.
ad hominem cope
I think it will be better if you can use all colors under your max rating, or at least while still practice in contest, otherwise you use your current rating.
I agree with Errichto
Another argument I want to add is chess. Chess titles are not tied to your current rating. Once you become a grandmaster, you cannot lose the title.
This is the strongest point IMO, in chess once you become CM/FM/IM/GM you keep the title for life. If we wanted to prevent too much inflation of higher colors we can also do a similar thing to chess where you can only have the color once you get, say, 2400 max rating and 3 separate perfs above 2500 in div1 to get red.
Sure , but in chess you don't just get the gm title by playing online , You need to play physically where you can't cheat and reach a certain rating threshold.
Then furthermore, you have to play against real verified grandmasters physically, and get a good score against them to get the title.
I think cf should learn smth from ATCODER , atcoder has a good moderation team , they do frequently ban blatant cheaters instantly and investigate on who needs further investigation, in cf 90% of cheater roaming around are beginners who don't know how obvious it is that they are cheating.
A side-effect of that in chess is a large number of people who retire immediately after reaching a milestone rating
I haven't heard of that (though I know nothing about chess so I believe you). Interesting. I feel like the opposite should be true: If I will never lose my title, there is no reason for me to stop participating. However, on Codeforces I will lose my title if I continue so I should stop now and never take part in any contests ever again.
by milestone rating i believe he means something like being rated 2000 and not a title
Absolutely agree. This was defintiely a thing that stopped me from competing at some point (after LGM, but before comfortably above it).
(Nowadays is different and I just give up, I recongize my skill issues due to AIs and unrelated to AI.)
Even if just the max rating may seem to make it too easy, we can also consider variants like
(1) requiring max rating + epsilon (50,100,150 or 200), or
(2) stayed there for at least 6 contests
Then you earn the colour for a lifetime.
one more suggestion just give the option to make current rating private .... only the max rating should be shown in public.
The 5th reason is so relevant lol
Its hard to say if that's a good idea or not, cheaters would maybe start chasing one time titles instead, they will cheat only a "few times" in order to get a nice color to their name, and probably stop cheating?, it would be nice if we could test it for a week and see what would happen before making permanent changes.
Yes please, I wanna be red again!
Not to be rude , but how did you drop down to blue ?
He might be just intentionally selling contests to look like he has even a fraction of rainboy's power.
how did u drop so low
Yes it will be much better to see my name in yellow but I think seeing my name in blue makes me want to study more.
For me the best version is to unlock color forever after user stays above threshold for some contests, or reaches threshold +100. Then one lucky contest is not enough. If some contests will be skipped because of cheating, the unlocked color should also be recalculated.
I think that thanks to this blog, Errichto will make it into the top 10 contributors.
Is it though? It is possible for someone to hit a good streak and end up with a max rating/color that doesn't reflect their actual skill.
For instance, I got 18th place on a div2 contest many years ago which got me purple (or what was purple considered to be back then), and truth is I really suck and never took this thing seriously enough to improve.
From what I read in some other blogs, many AI cheaters stop participating once they reach certain rating because they just want to show certain rating/color to some stupid candidate screening system, so they're already aiming for a max rating, not to maintain it.
The only two things that would deter cheaters from cheating are
Completely hiding ratings
Making the external incentives to cheat disappear
1) Is not even feasible, someone would code a rating approximation extension by checking contest standings, and CF wouldn't make much sense if you could only see your own standings or something like that
2) Is not on a contest platform's control, some of these incentives come from companies or for other reasons that have little to nothing to do with the website
And this measure wouldn't help newer people to gain "blog credibility" anyway.
That's actually a good point and I cannot argue against it
Never though about it, but yeah this is another good point
I would still associate "Errichto" with "something worth reading" even if you were gray :)
I agree that it isn't obvious if MAX is less random than CURRENT. For example, if you toss a fair coin N times and add +1 or -1, then the EV of final balance is 0, but the EV of MAX is $$$O(\sqrt N)$$$. But yeah, I think that Codeforces max rating is less volatile and more meaningful than current rating.
What I meant is that a current rating of an honest user is heavily affected by AI cheaters. I didn't claim that my change deters AI cheaters.
KAN MikeMirzayanov listen to this guy
Bad idea
Very agree, actually I am the author of round 1061, recently I found there is nearly no people practicing my round because I now drop to blue, and many users just thought "a blue user round is not a good round". But I was orange when I am making that round, currently I am blue only because I am affected by AI cheaters.
Another idea is to make the color of max rating to be appeared as initial letter and color of current rating to be as rest, for example, for me, "h" should be appear as orange and the rest should be as blue, if maximum rating exceed 3000, then first letter should be black. (or in order to differentiate LGM or GM, if your maximum rating is >=2400, your initial will be red unless your current rating also exceed 3000)
Good point. The author color heavily affects how likely I am to participate or check out the problems.
Though this argument only means that the color is important. Only combined with other factors (like AI cheaters affecting leaderboards) it means that Max rating might be better than current rating.
Not to say it's important, but you wouldn't be able to differentiate current LGM and ex-LGM if they are just GM now
Yes, my suggestion can change to this: LGM only apply when current rating is >= 3000, if your highest rating >=3000 but your current rating is < 3000, your initial will be red)
Although this may be a little unfair whose maximum rating is >= 3000 but current rating is < 3000.
"Here, this will add a whole new thing. This might be unfair for those that don't like the thing."
maybe just make the last letter the max rating color instead
What about post-lgms that became igms?
I like current color more than max rating.
But if max rating gets implemented, I hope there's an age cap to it.
If one is unable to maintain max rating from decade ago, one doesn't deserve it.
It might be a good idea to put the max rating in parentheses using its corresponding color, while keeping the username in the color of the current rating—for example, (legendary grandmaster) Errichto or Errichto (legendary grandmaster)—or to use a cleaner format like (LGM) Errichto.
What should be ideal is to give an opportunity to those who reach (lets say) 2400+ rating switch their name color. So it will be up to a person if he want to keep his color red(as the maximum) either if the person feels okay to display his current(maybe lower) one.
Errichto is now in Top contributors!
I support this 100 % man. PLEASE DO THIS.
Sounds like a good idea!
brilliant people have brilliant ideas.
How about setting colors for cheaters so that people can recognize them, which could help reduce cheating?
Best idea btw
rainboy agrees
I very much support this idea. This would actually incentivize people who genuinely participate in contests to continue participating without fear of having their color changed. The rating would drop, but even the safety of the highest color achieved would be great.
Cheaters would anyway cheat. I can't think of anything that could stop cheaters from cheating without ruining the fun of participating for the genuine participants.
That means tourist will forever be tourist and same goes for jiangly (ctrl+c)
MrMoon agrees
facts
You want the guy (idk who you were talking about) to be shown in RED?????
It would be good idea in no AI cheaters world. Most people here mention chess rating system, but they have offline matches, and your proporsal is much relevant for chess, but not for online codeforces.(My opinion is subjective).
Became top 5 all because of 1 blog
have Codeforces ever implemented any suggestion from blog before? like no response from admins about this
Don't agree but i think codeforces should allow unrated participation for div1/div2 contests that way you still take part in contest without fear losing your title.
you mean virtual contests?
No, you can registrer div3/edu rounds as unrated that way you take part the contest at same time everyone else but your rating dont change.
Virtual contests do that — you take part in a contest, that means solve the problems within given time with no access to editorial or other solutions (well at least legally), without having your rating affected.
This is a good suggestion but there are some fine implementation details that will need to be sorted out.
"This is a good suggestion, however it might have problems" Water found in ocean
My bro remembered cf password LETS GOOOO