Hi!

I've noticed an problem of lots of reports being put at random places and thus frequently unheard (if you ever tried to DM MikeMirzayanov, you most likely know what I'm talking about), so I take responsibility to declare this blog as a blog for collecting bug reports, proposals and other notes to mention considering the website codeforces.com Rules:

1) No off-topic. All unrelated comments will be downvoted, reported and deleted.

2) Please, share as much information related to your issue (if there is any) as you can. Simple "website doesn't work" can not be helped.

3) Other codeforces community rules apply here as well.

If you know about any unresolved issues, migrating them here will be appreciated. I'm not from CF web-design team so I have little power over the website itself so DMing me will most likely not help you (I don't prohibit it though).

Thanks and happy coding!

Sorry, It's time for dumb questions again. From what I see the platform is having a problem of rating inflation. As i know, it's not getting from easy/hard contests, because every contest is a zero-sum game. But on the other hand, every new account contributes 1500 rating. Why don't we make the initial rating 0? For people who are already rated on Codeforces we can easily subtract 1500. Ranks will most probably change, but Codeforces system, I think, will easily adapt (since the rank is not big of a deal) and, what's more, problem authors will not be able to blame rating inflation for their problems being too hard (not that they do complain though). Why is this not a solution?

Hi! I know you are already preparing yourself to downvote for questions like "Does math and CP correlate?" or "Why are there math problems on CF lately?" but I wanted to ask something more specific.

My path in competitive programming is built almost entirely with practice problems without relying on things like training camps, virtual contest training and any proper mathematical background. Will, for your opinion, starting math problemsolving almost from the scratch on my level be timewasting/useful/necessary? What is your opinion about practicing MO-type of problems for the sake of competitive programming and if you occasionally have good ways to start mathematical problemsolving (yet I believe it's not about solving problems right off the bat but I might be wrong), please share them.

Thank you all for the answers. Happy New Year!

https://www.spoj.com/problems/TEAMNIM/

Yet the most interesting part is when two players from the same team make turns after each other, what kinda reminds index-2 nim but without taking 1 stone from one heap. Probably with correct AABB — ordering it won't be hard to come up to a good BAAB one, since there should be some invariant. Any ideas/hints?

Hi, I was trying to submit a solution for a problem Gas Pipelines (gaz) and met a quite surprising verdict: System error. Resending doesn't help for many days, administration did not respond as well (I hope they weren't deleted as spam at some moment). Is there anyone with the same issue?

I understand that CP can't be described in few notes but I really want to hear from stronger competitive programmers some short ideas, rules and tips that help you while solving and/or coding difficult problems. I'm not talking about training in general but some tips on how to approach or what not to forget while solving and/or coding. Might be generic or specific. Anything. Many thanks.

Where can I find latest IOI contest mirrors? Only statements are ok too, but better with a place to check my solution.