TL;DR

What if we introduce the followings:

• You'll have a register-as-unrated button. You can switch rated and unrated only before opening a problem.
• If you are registered as a rated participant, you'll get rated when you open a problem, even if you don't submit.

Hello, community.

Currently, your AtCoder rating changes only if you submit to the contest. This is also the case with Codeforces, so I think it's a standard.

However, this scheme clearly has a flow; you can leave the contest without submission to keep your rating. This implies you may get underrated because of those who didn't submit. You would say things like this can happen only if you are a newcomer, and the effect will be negligible in the long term. I generally agree with it, but sometimes even reds are affected by this issue. I know some people intentionally submit CE code to make them rated. At the same time, I know some people do the "Head to F" strategy or similar things and sometimes don't make a submission.

I'm not that harsh to such behavior; rating is just an Internet point. Nonetheless, it's worth thinking about a new system. What I came up with is the following:

• You'll have a register-as-unrated button. You can switch rated and unrated only before opening a problem.
• If you are registered as a rated participant, you'll get rated when you open a problem, even if you don't submit.

I think these options can fulfill most of the participants' requests. For example, if you can't fully participate in a contest or just want to watch it, you can register as unrated participants and even submit during the contest (but don't get rated, of course). How do you think about this?