These days it feels like most of the contest announcements are greatly downvoted after the round, even when the round itself didn't have any critical issue. Although I myself am not very good at complimenting others and usually like to criticize, I don't think they deserve such hates at all.
As a former problem writer who hosted 3 rounds before, I know how hard it is to come up with good problems and prepare for them. The coordinators' job to ensure that everything works fine is even tougher. However, it is impossible to prevent every possible minor issues, and the writers will be highly demotivated if we show our hates towards the contests for every single thing we don't like.
Thus, here I'm bringing up a small campaign to show our respect to the authors — pressing the upvote button. It's nothing hard at all, takes only a few seconds, and is completely anonymous. This is the minimum appreciation we can give to their hard work. I saw a blog that said we had many 1k+ upvoted announcements a few years ago but these days they are gone even though we have much more people to vote. I want to see them again as well.
To clarify: I'm not saying that we should publicly target each contest and tell people to upvote it. It's more about changing our usual mindset and behavior, and nobody should be forced to join this wave.
but also, before you vote on a blog, consider which option is funnier
+1. To me there are numerous ways to express criticism, yet anonymous downvoting and refusing to elaborate is a terribly unprofessional option that people should try to avert from.
Good to have reminder. Hands down
Gratitude is a wonderful feeling for both parties involved :-)
Regarding this:
Here's a theory: could this have to do with the increase in cheating that seems to have been happening lately? Cheating is the ultimate form of disrespect and ingratitude, it makes sense that these same people would take all the amazing problems out there (available for free!) for granted.