antidisestablishment's blog

about Div.4. again
By antidisestablishment, history, 3 years ago, In English

last blog

I don't want to see that Div4 is a speed competition, so I think it must have at least one *1800 or *1900.

Welcome to show your ideas.

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

It is a beginner friendly contest Dude, why are you trying to eliminate its purpose by introducing very high level problems.

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

    why we matter about div4 round difficulty ,there are about 5 div1 and 2 rounds and only single div4 round
    Screenshot-2022-06-09-061611

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +37 Vote: I do not like it

    It won't, 1800-1900 is not that "hard", consider a regular div2 round, often problem F is 2600-3000 rated, obviously someone rated below 2100 can't solve them but it doesn't eliminate the purpose of div2's. I would say it is a good idea to add at least 1 "good" problem.

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

Adding 1800 or 1900 level problem would defeat the purpose of Div4.

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

    What is the purpose? make codeforces worse?

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

      dear SyadouHayami sir, as div 4 is for people less than 1400 rated , so in my opinion it is fine to not having higher rated problems in it. thank you...

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

      For me personally div4 makes codeforces better. I have fun participating in speed competition with easy problems once in a while

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -67 Vote: I do not like it

..

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

    And I am pretty sure that he became master when there were hardly any div4 rated rounds for him

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -23 Vote: I do not like it

    Wow, you are their mum so they need you to urge?

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -16 Vote: I do not like it

      My rating is better than you, Do check the stats before barking

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

sir u r right, but plz supot Botswana thx

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

Div 4 is a contest specially made for people who are new to competitive programming. it doesn't make any sense if you throw a problem of rating 1800+

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +39 Vote: I do not like it

I don't think there is a suitable reason to stop Div. 4 rounds.

  • It doesn't decrease the frequency of Div. 1/2 rounds, as Mike said himself.
  • Rating inflation is more about the issue of rating system itself, not the issue of Div. 4 rounds and their problems. If one really cares about their skills, then whether their rating is broken or not shouldn't even matter to them in the first place.
  • It is indeed speedforces, but speed is important for any level of participants. In fact, most of coding tests held by companies tend to just require implementing fast and accurate than anything else. Also, part of reason why Div. 4 rounds are speedforces is that the rated range is only 200 lower than that of Div. 3. I think, if really needed, we can also exclude Pupils from rated range, but I'm sure for most Pupils Div. 4 rounds are still helpful.
  • For newbies not every problem has to include a new concept to learn a new thing. Every second they think and code is an experience to them. And for 95% rated participants, not even all problems are easy to solve.
  • If one thinks that it's not helpful to their skills, then they can just not participate in Div. 4 rounds. Nobody forced them to join. Again, it's not that Div. 4 rounds take slots for Div. 1/2/3 contests. They only give additional chances.
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +26 Vote: I do not like it

Close Your Eyes if you don't want to see Div 4 in codeforces.

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

Even the last Div 3 round had three 800 rated problems. Not sure how many people enjoyed solving them.

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

Rather than giving 1800 or 1900 rated ,

option_A — 800 800 800 1000 1000 1200 1200 ( if this is the normally given type )

option_B — 800 800 1200 1400 1400 1600 1600 ( how about this?? )

its usually said — practice (your_rating + ~200 ) , so i think option_B would be better choice which will be constructive in logic building.( 1800/1900 would only be solved by higher rated than pupil with different accounts...which shouldn't be the case)

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

Div 4 contests can be taken as a fun contest by you too.

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

Or make it only rated for Newbie

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

I am very glad that someone brought up this topic. I completely agree with this blog, and I will now explain why exactly.

The target audience of Div. 2 rounds are specialists and experts. Typically, the D task in these rounds has a rating of 1800-1900 or higher. Consequently, not everyone even from the target audience of these rounds can solve this problem, which means that they solve about three problems. In Div. 1 rounds, the target audience is all users (there are not many participants in these rounds), but given that most participants are rated no more than 2500, again, they do not solve more than three problems (and if it is an ordinary master, like me, perhaps, two problems). As you can see, for many years on Codeforces it has worked out that when someone solves three problems in their division, it is considered an average or even a good result.

What happens with Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds, I don't really like it. The authors of these rounds try to come up with simple tasks, but, in my opinion, make them too simple. As a result, it turns out that in Div. 3 rounds the target audience solves four or even more problems (because they are quite simple for them). The result is a serious inflation of the rating: while a person sits in Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds, he calmly stays in his rating, but as soon as he takes part in Div. 2, he immediately "slips" down. Of course, there is such a problem with candidate master as well: in Div. 1 is not easy to hold, while in Div. 2 they calmly hold their ranking. But it seems to me that in this case the problem is not so big.

So we have this: a round which, in comparison with Div. 2 and Div. 1 is much less balanced (shifted in favor of excessive simplicity). Moreover, even this is not the most basic problem.

I looked through Codeforces Round #790 (Div. 4), and I can tell you that I didn't particularly like it. It's not clear to me why in Div. 2 contests the first two problems (rating 800-1200) are mostly constructive or ad-hoc, while in this round the problems with the same complexity are "just apply two pointers" or "calculate exactly what is written exactly as it is written". Is the sports programming is these kinds of problems? These problems are good as training problems, but hardly suitable for a rated competition.

Of course, Codeforces is developing, a lot of cool features are being added, and the great team is adding a lot of improvements. And if Div. 3 rounds are still justified (although they need to be a little more complicated), then, in my opinion, for the reasons described above, Div. Round 4 is a step in the wrong direction. If you want to hold such rounds, you should consider making them unranked, or create a separate section "Training Contests" and post such contests there.

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

    Purples is a target audience too, for most of div2s

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

    The result is a serious inflation of the rating: while a person sits in Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds, he calmly stays in his rating, but as soon as he takes part in Div. 2, he immediately "slips" down.

    Do you have a statistical proof for this? It would be interesting to see if it is true.

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

    Good opinion. Last div4 the hardest problem was only 1400 rated I think. Maybe keep Div4 but make the problems harder and more balanced, ranging from 800 to 1600 probably as the highest rating would be 1399

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

I think as cfdiv2E said here cf div2/div3 contest contain some problems which are hard for official participants so having 1 hard problem shouldn't make any difference or if CF team is making this only for new peoples then why not make it rated only for newbies ?

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