stevenkplus's blog

Are Software Development Streams welcome in the Streams Panel?
By stevenkplus, history, 4 years ago, In English

Hi Codeforces Community! As I'm sure many of you know, I'm very excited to stream a lot of educational competitive programming content in 2021. It's incredible to me that this feature only rolled out 3 months ago (https://codeforces.me/blog/entry/83939), and there's already so much traction within the community (with multiple streams happening from various users every week, and thousands of viewers). However, I've been considering broadening the subject matter of my streams and wanted to poll the community.

Here's my situation: I like to stream programming content that isn't strictly algorithmic -- for example, I maintain an open source project (down for across -- an online crossword game) in my free time and sometimes stream myself working on that as well. Are these kinds of streams interesting to anyone in codeforces?

Personally, I think software engineering is a different, but related, skill that many competitive programmers would be interested in. In fact, I think becoming a better software developer has actually helped my performance in contests by forcing me to slow down a bit and think through my plan before starting to type. And on the flip side, many people training on codeforces are looking to have a career in tech. However, I also want to be conscious of the community and not use codeforces to advertise unrelated personal endeavors if it's deemed off-topic. So please let me know what you think! (MikeMirzayanov I would love your input here too)

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Auto comment: topic has been updated by stevenkplus (previous revision, new revision, compare).

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +33 Vote: I do not like it

I'm interested, but I can't speak for anyone else.

Also, thanks a lot for the youtube videos — they are truly amazing and so incredibly helpful.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

Thanks for your intentions for the community .I would be super interested personally , but I fear this might give way to others trying to go a bit off topic with their streams and this place might become an advertising platform .What are your thoughts?

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    Agreed that there is a slippery slope, which is why I want to be cautious about how I use the streams panel. I recognize that it's a privilege and I want to be mindful not to misuse it.

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

iostream?

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4 years ago, # |
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Personally interested as it is truly related to codeforces community as you mentioned many of the users here are looking to have a career in tech. But at the same time, I think there should be strict guidelines on which topic can be streamed and which not. And hope to see your streaming on this topic soon.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    Thanks for your input! Agree that codeforces streaming topics should have rough guidelines -- my instinct is that they should remain lax while we're still getting used to the existence of streams.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -7 Vote: I do not like it

That will be really awesome if we can learn some development stuffs from a coder like you and it will also enhance the community and reach of codeforces, nice idea !!

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    Agreed, and I'm eager to get more experience livestreaming software dev to viewers! I anticipate continuing to do these streams regardless, even if I don't announce on codeforces.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +31 Vote: I do not like it

I don't think it is good idea for future of CP streams. Sorry

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 4   Vote: I like it +107 Vote: I do not like it

A strong no.

  1. "Are these kinds of streams interesting to anyone in codeforces?" is obviously a wrong question to ask.
  2. Streams are by default displayed to every user in the top-right. It makes them highlighted just like coming CF rounds. CF shouldn't promote arbitrary projects that much. (But if your project is close enough to algo then IMO announcing it in a blog is fine. Less exposure and harm.)
  3. Why should reds have more rights to put their non-CP projects on Codeforces? It's unfair.
  4. Personally, I don't even put all my algorithmic streams in CF. I skip those with coding interview questions — simply because it isn't competitive programming. Similarly, xiaowuc1 does weekly binarysearch.io streams. Maybe 0.1% of CF users participate in BSio contests so it makes sense not to display it in CF streams. (EDIT: I don't mean to forbid xiaowuc or anybody else to stream interview problems, it's fine if not overused). And these examples seem much more fitting than any non-algo programming stream.

That being said, math and puzzles aren't far away from CP and more people might want to watch it solved by top CP-ers, who are almost always good at math/puzzles but not necessarily good at SE or streaming projects. By this last part I mean: reds aren't significantly better than others at e.g. building a website or a game (well, this last example is arguable).

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

    Maybe 0.1% of CF users participate in BSio contests

    Well, this is a stupid argument. A small percentage of CF users participate in POI and yet it's perfectly fine to display POI streams. Additionally, BSio actually is closer to CP than to interviews, so I think that xiaowuc1 should promote his streams here.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      xiaowuc1 streams are paid.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
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        What does it change? Does it make a stream less valuable for viewers?

        EDIT: I understood your comment as info that he's paid by BSio for streams. I see nothing wrong with that. If you mean that we can't view streams for free, that's incorrect because his twitch streams are free, right?

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
          ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

          Does codeforces have paid contests, do they have a paid edu? Paid content is fine, it is just that I think the streams section should have streams which are free like other content on Codeforces, but they can promote their paid stream using blogs though.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
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        Ok, now I get it. What you noticed is that his VODs (past broadcasts) are "subscriber only". Well, it isn't worse than other streamers who don't even upload VOD's.

        His streams are free to watch live so I think everything's fine.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    I disagree with all points except 3, because for me and most other people here (Indiands lol) cp is something highly related to SE in a way, that normally people do cp as a hobby that helps them get into SE through their achievements. My point is that those who reside at this platform might find it interesting to watch non-algorithmic streams. It doesn't harm the community as long as those non-algorithmic streams make it hard to search for algorithmic streams, which I believe wouldn't be the case anyway. Obviously, I get your point and don't really want to argue about that, this is just my opinion.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      All streams make it harder to use everything on the right side of the website.

      Do you want CF to become an all-programming website? There are different platforms for that.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
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        As Um_nik said, you can disable streams tab on the right if it distracts you. And again, I agree with the point that cf is cp only platform, but adding a little of outside wouldn't make it worse as far as we have certain boundaries.

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
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          Disabling streams is a solution for somebody who doesn't want to see streams, not for somebody who doesn't want to see non-cp streams.

          adding a little of outside wouldn't make it worse as far as we have certain boundaries.

          I agree and this is why I said:

          (But if your project is close enough to algo then IMO announcing it in a blog is fine. Less exposure and harm.)

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            4 years ago, # ^ |
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            I guess having a blog is indeed the best solution in this case.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -36 Vote: I do not like it

    I think CP is a subset of the SE. Most of us started playing around with algo stuff and then moved to the real world product code. In my opinion Steven's intention is more likely to make Codeforce's content wider, than somehow change direction of the CP... I just wanna say that CP and SE are goin' at the same direction (make CS better?) and one does not interfere with the other...

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      I am sorry , but I disagree. Let's say Facebook and Khan Academy both claim to be trying to make world better . I am sure you won't like to see facebook posts on Khan Academy . That is an exaggeration , but what I mean is that Codeforces has it's specific purpose and making it more cluttered helps with nothing . There are platforms for other stuff and one should go use them and be updated. The solution is not to post about hiring , software streams etc on Codeforces . I hope I explained my point without offending anyone.

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4 years ago, # |
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Having different categories of streams and blog posts could help. For example, we can have one category for contests discussions, another one for algorithmic lectures, another one for general SE stuff, and finally a category for completely off-topic stuff (the categories can vary, but I think you get the main idea). The site could be configured in such a way that only streams of some categories are shown by default. This way, both people who want to see only CP stuff and people who would like to see how good CP-ers approach another activities would be happy :-)

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

Let's say Facebook and Khan Academy both claim to be trying to make world better . I am sure you won't like to see facebook posts on Khan Academy

I think this is a good point.

"Are these kinds of streams interesting to anyone in codeforces?" is obviously a wrong question to ask.

My opinion: While I do concede that the question of "Is this content interesting to the codeforces community" is not equivalent to the question of "Does this content belong on codeforces home page", I think it is still an appropriate question to pose. For instance, if the answer is that it's not very interesting, then it probably doesn't belong on the front page. The only reason there is a debate around software-focused streams on codeforces is because the answer seems to be yes for a non-trivial population of codeforces.

Personally, I'm generally interested in at least checking out streams done by codeforces users, and have not yet had an experience where I felt like there were too many irrelevant streams. If the sheer number of scheduled streams ever becomes a problem, perhaps we could introduce a priority system to sort & filter the number of streams shown on the front page?

A possible system:

  • Top priority: Author streams, Post-contest streams, anything else CF admins select
  • Mid priority: High-rated users discussing highly relevant content (virtual contests, problem solving sessions, educational topic streams, math topics, dev setup/template)
  • Low priority: Anything else, no preference given to high-rated users (these should never compete with on-topic streams for front page real estate. includes software streams & anything else)

Thoughts?

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +55 Vote: I do not like it

It is tough and in some way heartbreaking to tell so, but I think the answer is no. Streams are already promoted kinda intrusively in my opinion and because of that we should keep that clean and strictly relevant to the site's main scope. One such stream would be invitation to go even more in a tangential direction and I wouldn't like that since that tab is advertised so visibly. I appreciate your effort and will to contribute to the community and I understand that this may be interesting to nontrivial fraction of community, so that is why it is a bit hard for me to write this, but in short I think it would be overusing this tab, however I would be totally fine with advertising such streams through separate blog posts (and you will get more contribution that way xD)

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

When it comes to CP, the reds are the best ones.That's why the rights to post streams about it, is reserved for them, but when it comes to other SE stuff , are the reds still the best in this community. I don't think so.

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