Hello everyone,
This issue was mentioned several times before like here. Someone participates in a contest, doesn't do well, submits his solutions from another account so that his submissions are skipped and he is removed from the contest. No rating loss, no penalty, no ban, nothing.
Why not skip the submissions and keep the user in the contest? is there a reason for this? perhaps sometimes solutions are skipped for other reasons which aren't the participant's fault?
You cannot always say that two users' solutions are connected, therefore I agree with disqualification without rating penalty. Yes, the user can skip rounds which do not favor him, until he can't advance his rating anymore. Usually, those users have rather limited skills, so I wouldn't bother. But, if it's proven cheating (i.e. there are several occasions of user getting such verdict), I would ban the user for several next contests (complete ban could make user to create another account, which is not desirable).
Couldn't agree more, This is getting really annoying, especially when someone does it several times in a short time !!!
K
I live in the west coast of the United States and a lot of rounds are at 6:35 am for me. I often register for them the night before and just end up sleeping through them because I'm too tired. I wouldn't really want to have this penalty.
Lk
Is this a troll?
You can't wake up 5 minutes before the contest to unregister if you oversleep.
Unregister in your sleep duh.
As somebody who also lives on the west coast of the US, usually if I want to participate in a round at 6:35am I'll leave the page to register open on my computer before I sleep. Then in the morning, if I don't oversleep, all I need to do is login to my computer and click register. At most it takes a minute.
Of course, I need to be awake more than 5 minutes before the contest starts, but if I'm not awake by then there's almost no chance I'll be able to think coherently once the contest begins.
I think if there is ever a penalty for registering but not submitting, then one should be able to register for the contest at any time once registration opens. If this happened I think I'd be in favor of this. In Div 1 rounds there are usually hundreds (out of less than 2 thousand) participants who register and then don't submit. Now there's a good chance that some of them just overslept or were busy, but if you can register at any time that wouldn't be an issue.
This would also remove the strategy where people look at the first problem or two in a contest, and then choose to either participate or ditch the contest. I think this strategy is rather cowardly and it would be nice if people couldn't do it.
This is of course my opinion and there's a chance I missed something.
Ah yeah, I suppose that would work fine. I guess it's on me for waking up at 6:15 am, trying to (unsuccessfuly) get out of bed for the next 15 minutes, brushing, and getting to the computer at ~6:35 for these contests :P
If you can register at any time, then you'd just register after looking at the first problem or two.
Also, no. Waking up at 6:30am already sucks, don't make me wake up even earlier for something that isn't even a real issue.
I was thinking that you wouldn't be able to see the problems until registering, but I completely forgot to mention that.
I don't see why this would force you to wake up earlier. If you can register anytime after registration opens, then you can register at 6:34am for a 6:35am contest.
And yes, this issue is probably not high priority, but I thought I'd put my thoughts out there and see what others thought as well.
What if I am 5 mins late? I would say instead of registering, "open problems" button like TopCoder has could be the answer.
But overall, if someone really that obsessed with rating, let them be happy!
As someone who is also on the west coast of the United States, I always register for everything and then just see if I wake up on time (most of the time I do). However, I think it should be:
Once you open the problems you are in the contest.
Its pretty simple tbh and I don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet, it would stop dogding or whatever other concerns people have.
My one concern here is that this approach could easily be manipulated using alts (i.e. sign up on an alt, open the problems, see if you like them, and open the problems on your main if so). That said, I still think this would be a significant improvement over the status quo; there's no reason we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I don't like this idea. I often can't participate in the contest, but I like to check the live results. Usually, I am not registered, but it happens sometimes (when I think that there is a chance I can participate). While checking standings, it is really easy to click a problem by accident. Also, as pointed out before, it is effortless to cheat this feature, so I don't think it makes any sense.
I mean sure, Geothermal's concerns are valid that people might just use an alt.
To your concern about the fact that you might click on a problem accidentally, all we need is a warning screen, "looking at this problem will make the round rated for you" or something such as that so that accidents won't happen.
Same here, registering for a lot of contests and only checking my friend's results later.
Umm..why can't we just have a popup message that'll ask us whether we want to participate in a contest or not right before the contest so if someone clicks Yes then they should be judged for the contest irrespective of whether they made a submission or not and if they don't click yes then they shouldn't be allowed to participate.
How about "3 strikes and you're out"?
You get caught cheating thrice, your account gets permanent ban. I don't think anyone honestly doing the contest would get falsely caught thrice. (I haven't been falsely caught even once in my 2 years of CP)
Just keep the account in rating except it is gaining rate. Should not spare them from the penalty.