A lot of people choose not to enter a contest when they see that Problem A is harder than usual. So, make the first problem of every contest easy to encourage more people to participate. You can increase the difficulty in the later problems—just avoid making them too difficult. Keep them slightly above or below the usual level. That way, those who can solve more problems will naturally earn a higher rating.
Skill issue bro
Codeforces should just make you a rated participant if you open any of the problems... I hate that this is something you can game, and I hate that I actually think about if it's worth it to participate before submitting for A.
Didn't know this wasn't the case already, 100% agree that anyone who registers for a contest as rated should be a rated participant regardless of if they submit something.
I think part of it is contests are often at very early/late/unusual times for some timezones so someone isn't penalized if they miss it entirely for whatever reason, even if they accidentally open codeforces like if it's their bookmark or something
But yeah if they open a problem in the contest there's no excuse
why your comment gets voted up while my blog gets down, isnt' the same idea?
I don't know. Under the current codeforces system, all we can do is what you said. I'm just suggesting to get rid of the root of the problem, not just patch the symptoms of it. But if codeforces doesn't change, all we can do is patch the symptoms.