Hi everyone, writing this blog after the recent rollback, getting red back to top of leaderboard as everyone so much desired, and making the overall leaderboard so much better.
If you disliked the announcement/tutorial of Codeforces Round 1033 (Div. 2) and CodeNite 2025 or posted a genuine critique because of problem quality or or because of some other situation which we could've improved, then this blog is not for you, I don't have any hard feelings and understand why you did it.
The dark side
First of all, everyone who cheated in the round, I really reprimand you all and hope you all are fairly retributed for what you all made me go through and the deeds you've done. I especially hope all those who run the back alley solution distribution during the contest are gone for good and that they are especially retributed for their wrongdoings. (I don't think we can stop GPT or that it can suffer "retribution", so not sure what to say about it. Anyways, people who use GPT for wrong are responsible, not GPT itself.)
Secondly, for everyone else who disliked the blog and commented such beautiful hatred for the reason of cheaters on top of leaderboard, thank you for not waiting till the rollback and for making the announcement blog one of the most downvoted blogs in codeforces history. Ain't I so grateful to you all for giving me trauma for like a week of my life, drilling my confidence to the ground by undermining months of my hardwork over a situation I had no control over. And just don't mention the I don't know how many posts over various other platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Linkedin and what not to curse and spread various false information about what has happened(No I don't use these myself, I was told about these by people I know). I never thought people got so much time until I saw/knew about these. Never in my life I imagined I would block codeforces in my brower of choice(using an extension) to distance myself from the hate for quite some days. I don't know what was the rush that people had to blame everything on us, downvote annoucement before the rollback(this part atleast I can understand, you needed somewhere to vent out your rage against the cheaters) or comment their unfiltered opinions everywhere.
And don't mention codeforces platform itself for rubbing salt in my wounds by imposing a $$$1$$$ comment in $$$10$$$ minute penalty on me for the $$$ \lt -100$$$($$$-153$$$) contribution I'm currently at the time of writing this blog. I don't understand who other than announcement blog writers, a.k.a. contest authors, get to $$$ \lt -100$$$ contribution that they are trying to stop through this. If they do stop them, they can atleast lift the penalty for us when we ask as we have to sometimes reply to many comments as author, especially the same day or the next day of the round.
The bright side
But hey, I won't only show the dark side. A thank you from the bottom of my heart really for everyone who tried to support me, many of you who messaged me personally in codeforces or by other media to appreciate the efforts, who commented positively, who tried to defend me on various platforms, those who really stood up despite being a complete stranger, and those who even just enjoying the contest for what it was. I wasn't able to respond to many of your messages or comments, but I genuinely am grateful to you all. Also, thank you so much to my friends especially who stood for me or helped me cool down. You all really we a great help to boost my morale. It felt so good to see that there is so much positivity still left on the internet, and it isn't just overrun by negativitiy. Also, a special thanks to Educational Codeforces Round 180 (Rated for Div. 2) for existing, as things died down mostly for us after it took place(I personally liked its problems, especially D).
Conclusion
Don't worry, I'm quite over the negativity and stuff, I'm just writing this blog as a final wrap up to the emotional downhill that I went through in much of the past week. This experience did get me to become a stronger person not gonna lie. As I said previously in another blog, I always have loved and would continue to love the problems and I've made and the contest we've created. Hoping that maybe, some future author wouldn't have to face this over something that was out of their control, and that they are appreciated for the effort they've put, and critiqued genuinely for the mistakes that they have made. Hope that people understand that authors are not responsible for everything, that they are there just so to make problems that you all can enjoy, and if you get to learn just a bit more from the problems, it is just a win.
As I’ve said before and I’ll say again , what happened in that contest had already been happening in the previous rounds as well. It was just a hateful outburst from a well known hate spreading troll, and the herd mentality kicked in simply because of the RED color. Honestly, the contest was good.
No, it wasn't
You dont even join the contest
And some mfers are even commenting full of hatred even here. Fucking stupid people!
Cheaters defending a cheater author is crazy
Definitely. On codeforces cheaters deserve unlimited hatred without reason.
It's crazy that both authors of the round are "cheaters" and "leakers", probably the first time in the history of codeforces.
Looking forward to more of your problems. Its really sad that you had to be targeted for this. No author deserves so much hatred for his problems. We need to remind ourselves that Codeforces.com is a privilege and We have so much fun in solving problems its all due to The Authors/testers and the efforts of many.
Those who defend cheater and leaker author harshith_04:
Even check the top 30 participants in https://mirror.codeforces.com/contest/2120/standings most of them are AI based still they aren't skipped.
few Submissions:
325450267 — AI based
325447000, 325457828 — even different languages.
325443215, 325443894 — these two are almost same and both AI based.
325452717 — AI based
325465984 — AI based
325458284 — AI based
325464820 — AI based
325443265 — AI based, not even removed comments
Dragmon — check out this
https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/144179
Please read this blog and report all of these submissions on my website. Thanks.
Do you mind explaining this submission:314105908
which is during a live contest?
I will paste the code down here if its not clear enough:
Hi, thankyou for pasting the code here for clarity
If you have solved the problem, the main part of the problem was recoginizing that the two arrays can be reverse of each other after some number of operations if and only if for all indices where $$$a[i]=b[i]$$$ is atleast $$$n\mod 2$$$ where $$$n$$$ is number of elements and for every $$$a[i], b[i]$$$ in arrays $$$a, b$$$, there is also a $$$b[i], a[i]$$$ in arrays $$$a, b$$$. So in my code, I assigned a unique number for every $$$a[i], b[i]$$$ and $$$b[i], a[i]$$$ pair, so after that it basically reduces to given an array that has every element paired up except atmost $$$1$$$ element in case of odd length array, perfrom atmost $$$n$$$ swaps such that the final array is a palindrome. This part has a pretty obvious solution of swapping every element to its partner element's mirror position, taking atmost $$$n/2$$$ swaps. This part is the makePalindrome function.
The makePalindrome function is pretty trivial to code, so I used copilot's help for it. This is the only problem where I used it as you can see and that too for a pretty redundant part of code(which it couldn't even and so I received a WA).
I don't think the use of copilot is legit in this case.
I don't think it is a core logic/algorithm of the code. But yea, I understand your point. I got to know about the blog you're quoting it from when I told my friend after contest about it and he referenced me to the blog, and I don't use copilot since then and have not used it before then for competitive programming. And the code was wrong anways, so I didn't get any rating or such from it.
author-bullying on this platform is crazy sometimes. i am sorry you had to go through this!
I think as people who work in Tech, these things should not happen
First of all during placements , getting good ranks in div2 contests is extremely difficult because maximum people cheat and submit solutions which is really a Massive issue for those who give contests fairly.
Keep the cheater away!
Keep the cheaters away!