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Whats your opinion about Div4

 2 years ago
source link: http://codeforces.com/blog/entry/101384
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Whats your opinion about Div4

I have been thinking about making a contest, I would like to know your opinion about div4 contests,if there are users who are interested I would love to make one! thanks in advance!

10 hours ago, # |

It will be good!Let's do it!

7 hours ago, # |

Should the contest be rated?

7 hours ago, # |

I personally thought D4 was a good idea, and I'm sad they discontinued.

6 hours ago, # |

I don't think a div 4 contest is necessary. Beginners can attempt 2-3 problems in a div 3 contest and 1-2 problems in a div 2 contest. Div 4 will be a speed run rather than a learning opportunity.

5 hours ago, # ^ |

Yes it is not very necessary. But, it will be fun.Will be more contests

4 hours ago, # ^ |

I don't think a div 4 contest is necessary.

I agree: it's not necessary, insofar as Codeforces can do without it. However, that doesn't justify or provide any logical explanation for keeping/removing division 3. Plenty of actions are unnecessary, but still beneficial and contrarily, a plethora of undertakings are necessary but not beneficial. But alas, I digress :-)

Div 4 will be a speed run rather than a learning opportunity.

I agree: Division 4 will be a speed run for people who are sufficiently high-rated. The same applies for other contests too: for most div1 contestants, division 3 is a speedrun. For LGMs, most division 2s are a speedrun too. However, that doesn't mean that division 2/3 are useless: they're quite educational for people who are lower rated. That is to say, just because a division is a speedrun for a subset of people does not imply it's useless: it can very much be insightful and interesting for lower rated peoples.

Beginners can attempt 2-3 problems in a div 3 contest and 1-2 problems in a div 2 contest.

As someone who used to a pupil, it's incredibly demoralizing to solve only 1 or even 2 problems. 2 hours and only 1 problem? Furthermore, recently, there's been wide difficulty gaps in div2 between A and B, so only a very small subset of problems are even interesting for pupils/newbies. There would be a larger subset of solvable and therefore interesting problems for pupils, if there were division 4s.

Problemsetting

Writing a division 4 is a somewhat easy task, since most problems will be <= 1700 anyways. At least, I suspect a division 4 can be held every 2 weeks, and that it wouldn't strain problemsetters.

  • 82 minutes ago, # ^ |

    With a larger pool of people who can effortlessly solve a lot of problems from a contest, plagiarism and smurfing becomes a bigger issue. Div3 contests are already dominated by smurfs and this is clearly visible in the top 10 or the top 100 (codeforces doesn't show "untrusted participants" on the scoreboard, but we can use the cf-predictor website to see them). Div4 is going to be even worse.

      • 36 minutes ago, # ^ |

        There's an alternative solution: just skip Div3/Div4 contests. The risk/reward ratio is bad (especially for cyans in Div3 contests). And Div3 contests are not particularly frequent anyway.

        You are saying that it's demoralizing to solve only 1 or 2 problems. But solving more than 2 problems and getting rewarded with a negative rating delta may be even more demoralizing. All thanks to a crowd of smurfs siphoning rating points out of the system.

        • 24 minutes ago, # ^ |

          Rev. 2  

          0

          I may be wrong, but I was always under the impression that smurfs don't affect rating. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though.

          Update: Mike said that D4 preparation is hard, so it looks like no Div4 is the best way to go.


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