VladaMG98's blog

Low frequency of Div1 contests
By VladaMG98, 4 years ago, In English

Hey everyone,

I was just wondering what could be the reason for such low frequency of division 1 contests lately. If i'm not overseeing anything, approximately 2 contests per month were held for the last 3 months -- and all this happening during the times when most people are spending a better part of their days staying at home, as well as most, if not all, onsite contests being cancelled.

A couple reasons that come up to my mind are:

  • people not being motivated enough (payment not being adequate, perhaps?) to set some high quality problems? While I highly appreciate the fact that CodeForces has been free of charge throughout the years, I am pretty sure that most people would like to sponsor the contest preparations.
  • general lack of problem ideas? please no
  • something else?

I'd just like to hear your opinion on this matter.

Wishing you all the best!

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Comments Comments (15)
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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +48 Vote: I do not like it

Hello,

I am sort of new to codeforces (I started a few months ago), but based on what I have observed here are the reasons:

  • The recent boom in codeforces users (mostly due to the coronavirus pandemic) has made it so that the ratio of Div. 2 to Div. 1 users has increased dramatically. Therefore it would be most optimal to host Div. 2 contests as they are a) easier to write, and b) have more participants.

  • Harder problems are harder to write, and good problems hard to come by. Remember, Div. 1 problems (especially the hard ones) are made so that even some of the best of the best are challenged (This isn't really a valid reason, but it still might be hard as more users means it's harder to get to the top -> problem difficulties rise).

I might be wrong on these. Let me know what you think.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    Yeah, I completely get why someone would rather write a div2/div3 contest than a Div1 one (easier to do, more people showing up, etc..). That's why I'm saying that maybe increasing the money for creating some div1 harder problems would solve the problem, and my personal opinion is that most people would even like to pay some small participation fee (or that, regulated somehow else) in order for that to happen.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    I see a lot of people talking about the pandemic in this context, does anyone have any data to show CF participation by old or new users is up?

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      This is just a really rough approximation, but average number of participants on div2/div3 contests in last 3-4 months is more than 20k, while the average on contests that are 7-8 months ago is less than 15k (though I haven't done any proper calculation). This also doesn't include the fact that the community is growing all the time, but I still think that this increase is significant.

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

Somebody told me that a significant portion of div1 before the pandemic was a mirror of an onsite event. That may be why.

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4 years ago, # |
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I think the Global Rounds might have patched up for a bit... But yes, the frequency of div1 rounds is too low. Maybe that's due to unsatisfying performance of the server.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +40 Vote: I do not like it

72 problems have been rejected in a div2 proposal, maybe same problem for div1 :\

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4 years ago, # |
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[deleted]

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

    I think you should just make a new blog post for this -- much higher chance of someone answering.

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4 years ago, # |
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The frequency of Div1 contests is always nearly the same: ~3 Div1 contests per month. Sometimes we have more than 3, sometimes less than 3. Mostly it depends on writers and coordinators efficiency, but my plan is to host ~3 such rounds per month (and we more or less always stick to this plan).

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +36 Vote: I do not like it

    Thanks a lot for you answer; the thing I just wanted to point out is that I remember times at which there were many more Div1 only rounds (not mixed ones). And also, I expected that the number of contests will jump up during the global pandemic, and we had 16 contests in first 4 months of this year, and only 5 in next 2.5 months)

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

      We don't have any large queue of Div1 proposals. Please, propose Div1 contest here https://mirror.codeforces.com/proposals/contests During pandemic writers and coordinators don't have more free time (even less, it is harder to study remotely). Plus many olympiads were rescheduled, but some additional and easy-to-prepare rounds were based on problems from some official olympiads. So I don't see any reasons to have more Div1 rounds now than usual.

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4 years ago, # |
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