lomienyeet's blog

Worsening Codeforces blog qualities?
By lomienyeet, history, 3 years ago, In English

TL;DR: more and more troll blogs, attention seeking rewarded with downvotes, vicious cycle?

Dear Codeforces friends,

Recently there are a lot more joke/troll blogs on the Codeforces platform. Obviously, some amount of jokes to lighten up the mood and create a more relaxing atmosphere is a great idea (for example sus has funny trousers prizes jokes), but the situation of trolls appears to be have worsened significantly throughout the past weeks. More and more repetitive content pops up every day, and useful tutorials are often overshadowed by people saying "hurr durr downvote me pls ! ! ! !! here is a funny amogus pic hahahhahhahahaha".

The content posted by trolls varies, but usually falls under a few categories as follows:

1) Random spam / jokes (Polygons)

2) Deliberate hate speech (Bloodless_Castrator before they got banned)

3) Content that makes people uncomfortable (zucyo05)

The main issue here, is that there are many users who are obviously attention-seeking whores wishing to be downvoted. Generally, they post horrible blogs which have absolutely no meaning / offensive meanings, resulting in downvotes from some members of the community, then incentivising them to post similar things again. And considering the frequency at which these users post their blogs, an actually useful blog could be washed away from "Recent Actions" and the attention of the community within mere minutes.

Annoyance is further added to these shitposts by the repetitive content. Since these attention-seeking whores also have absolutely zero originality, they often copy and paste existing blogs in a sarcastic manner to farm downvotes. For example, here is Sparky_Master_WCH1226 making a joke by posting a fake April Fools Contest blog here. And within a few hours, here is Sparky_WCH_Master1226 using the exact same format in this blog. The community sees repetition, downvotes ensue, cycle continues, whatever.

Disclaimer: I understand that I am a pupil, and my opinion is probably unimportant in the eyes of some. In fact, some of you would probably say "You are just a pupil, go back to learning binary search and stop complaining about blogs! All the trolls have higher rating than you, just don't read them if you don't like their blogs!" And indeed, I could shut up and just ignore all troll blogs. Catalog exists for a reason.

However, I would still like you to consider the effects of this worsening problem.

Do we really want to see a day, where Codeforces blogs are nothing but shitposting and no one actually does discussions / useful tutorials related to competitive programming?

Do we really want to see a day, where Catalog exists as a relic of the better past when people used to be helpful?

In the (un?)wise words of SecondThread, "Can we please get back to programming?"

Sincerely, an insignificant pupil

P.S.: Sorry for the immense amount of user tags and long rant. Feel free to upvote or downvote this blog, and comment what you think about the current blogging situation.

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  • Vote: I do not like it

Comments Comments (41)
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

YES,it is true. Codeforces is a website for CP programming not for unusual blogs and jokes. We have to get back to programming.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

The last time I write a blog about this, I get downvote

Spoiler

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +2 Vote: I do not like it

So relatable when useless blogs get upvoted while useful and related blogs get downvoted.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

Fun fact: active shitposters are mostly from Botswana.

I can't even read blogs safely after I watched some of zucyo05's blogs.(even his photo makes me uncomfortable)

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

I don't think this represents a greater shift in the community; I attribute this to a few attention-seeking spammers. Hopefully, Mike bans them.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

omg sifu!!!

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +114 Vote: I do not like it

Recent actions seems fine for me, I didnt know about the existance of troll blogs until I saw this

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

While I do agree that troll blogs should be banned (maybe hide blogs of low contribution people), I don't think that "Codeforces blogs should only be related to competetive programming" part holds completely true. Codeforces is a platform for programming, but it's also a community of like-minded people, who should be able to discuss anything (including, but not limited to programming).

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +48 Vote: I do not like it

Fake April Fools blogs can be excused since it's tradition and one that CF has actually followed. That said, yes, there's been a lot of shit blogs for a long time. Comment why it sucks, downvote so it'd be hidden and move on.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -41 Vote: I do not like it

so what do you want to express by writing this post

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +26 Vote: I do not like it

Maybe it would help, if displayed negative contribution would be capped? For example, if one gets -50 or less contribution, it shows as -inf, so some less intelligent members of our community won't be able to 'compete' for more negative contribution.

Also it would be helpful if accounts with that negative contributions were getting automatically banned from posting and commenting :)

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

    Banned from posting and commenting ? — what if a round or an editorial gets many downvotes? which happens sometimes?

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      I don't think that an account's contribution gets down or up as quickly as a single post's contribution.

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        3 years ago, # ^ |
        ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

        Many occurrences have happened before, including but not limited to alishahali1382 and interlude.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -18 Vote: I do not like it

    How about competing for most negative comment

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -12 Vote: I do not like it

    i'm sure someone will code a custom extension to show the real contribution.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -15 Vote: I do not like it

I don't think profiles with contribution <= 20 should be allowed to make blogs. And unrated accounts should be restricted from even commenting. Troll accounts (or accounts with negative contribution) like Sparky_Master_WCH1226, should be restricted to 1 comment per week. What do you think of this?

Please help. @MikeMirzayanov

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -31 Vote: I do not like it

    I don't think profiles with rating <=1200 should be allowed to join contests. And unrated accounts should be restricted from even participating. Dumb people (or people with low rating) like you, should be restricted to 1 contest per year. What do you think of this?

    Please help. @winterfire

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

    So my account is now considered as "troll account"? :(

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

      Take a look at the following sentences.

      1. Troll accounts, i.e., accounts with negative contribution, should be restricted to 1 comment per week.

      2. Troll accounts (or accounts with negative contribution) should be restricted to 1 comment per week.

      The former implies that accounts with negative contribution are troll accounts, while the latter does not. At the time of you posting your comment, I suppose your account had negative contribution. In which case, the answer would be NO.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +27 Vote: I do not like it

    I think Sparky_Master_WCH1226 's blogs are funny, and he didn't post the blogs frequently, it can always make me happy, I think the blogs as this can't be considered as trolls. :(

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +7 Vote: I do not like it

      I suppose that's true, but Sparky_Master_WCH1226's contribution is -141, which is indicative of the fact that his humour isn't well received by the general populace. I'm not insinuating against a particular profile, but advocating a broadly accurate principle.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

      How often do you check recent actions? Most of these blogs got downvoted, hidden from recent actions and eventually deleted or moved to drafta. There's a chance they're more frequent than you realize.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +24 Vote: I do not like it

    I believe that that's too strict. I feel like it's quite difficult to achieve >20 contribution without writing blogs, so all the new accounts could hardly ever write a blog. Restrict unrated is probably good idea, but you should not judge usefulness of a person via his contribution. One could occasionally write nonsense or even just a thing that community didn't like (possibly publish some useful information that was written somewhere above or claim that some unpopular programming language is cool). If it is their first comment than they would be afraid of writing something else not to go further.

    On the other hand, I see that I crossed out the criteria so that it's hard now to say whether an account is troll or not. A good thing could be to expand voting system — add a button indicating that the post is troll or something and the person should be restricted from writing often.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -10 Vote: I do not like it

      "I feel like it's quite difficult to achieve >20 contribution without writing blogs.. "

      hi bro, how is life bro?

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -31 Vote: I do not like it

You're not helping

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Just wanted to share my thought on this : can we have separate endpoint to handle the Blogs, like blog.codeforces.com and it will basically contain all the content and it will refrain to get distracted by articles at least on the homepage.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    You can hide the recent actions in the sidebar in your settings if blogs distract you. I really don't see how a subdomain changes anything.

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I think trolling is funny as long as it is not spam and not offensive
Polygons but with less post rate would be a good example
but posting edgy content on the platform just to cause controversy and get attention is really what should be banned

Amou_Purang and Sparky_Master_WCH1226 are also good examples for funny trolls :D
they are not constantly spamming and do not post offensive content

Edit : btw you being pupil is not a reason for being insignificant, Thats ratism!
Opinions really don't depend on rate, You are free to post yours and others are free to either support it or not, you really don't have to shut up ;)

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

    What's funny about some random bullshit and that one picture? Like sure, at least it is not offensive but that's like the only positive thing about these blogs. I'm all for joke blogs but they should at least attempt to be funny, even if they fail at it. I wish users would learn after they get downvoted dozens of times.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      Ok i get your point
      You are right :)

      Secret
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I wasnt ready for zucyo05's profile picture, now i wont be able to sleep.

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2 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -8 Vote: I do not like it

so what do you want to express by writing this post

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