One of our aims with CodeChef is to foster learning and growth among people who are passionate about programming through healthy competition and knowledge sharing.
Guidelines to host Rated Contest on CodeChef
Problem Gradient
The contest should have something for all users of the platform. So, you need to ensure that a good spread of the problem difficulties is present.
- If the contest is to be rated for only Division 3 & 4 users, there should be:
- at least 3 Cakewalk problems
- at least 2 Simple
- at least 3 Easy
- at least 1 Easy-Medium
- If the contest is for Division 2, 3, & 4 users (easiest ~6 problems in Div-4 and hardest ~6 problems in Div-2), there should be:
- at least 3 Cakewalk problems
- at least 2 Simple
- at least 3 Easy
- at least 2 Easy-Medium
- If the contest is for all 4 Divisions users, there should be:
- at least 3 Cakewalk problems
- at least 2 Simple
- at least 1 Easy problem
- at least 3 Easy-Medium
- at least 1 Medium
- If the contest is rated till 5 star or 6 star users, the difficulty needed would be somewhere between the above two points.
If you are unsure what the various difficulty levels are, please refer to this.
Point of Contact
There should be one Point of Contact (PoC) from the organizing team, with whom the CodeChef team can interact and who will take responsibility for the entire contest.
- The PoC should satisfy at least one of these 3 conditions:
- They should have a Combined Codechef Rating (current) >= 1700 and should have participated in at least 10 CodeChef contests. (OR)
- Codeforces Rating (current) >= 1900 and should have participated in at least 10 Codeforces contests. (OR)
- Topcoder Rating (current) >= 1500 and should have participated in at least 10 Topcoder contests.
All the problem ideas and solution outlines (with proof outlines mentioned wherever you make non-trivial claims) should be sent to the CodeChef Team at least 90 days before the contest, for review. Use a google doc to add all these.
Mention your inspiration(s) for each problem. If there was a previous problem(s), blog, math problem, game, etc which you tweaked, or got inspiration from, link all such sources. This is mandatory - if you do not mention your inspiration and it is found later that your problem is similar to an existing source, you and your institute risk being perma banned from the platform.
Once Approved all the problems should be made ready, at least 10 days before the contest. This includes:
- Problem statements
- Test-data
- Editorials: Please look at this for editorial-specific guidelines. This might be done by a separate person. Speak with the admin.
- Test-data Generator, along with a text file explaining the generation plan.
- Two solutions for each problem, written independently by two different people.
- Validators (codes which assert that all the constraints are satisfied in the test-data)
Some important instructions regarding these have been included here. Please follow them. Only after all these have been submitted and reviewed, will the contest be announced as being Rated and promoted.
The organizing team, along with the PoC should be online during the contest and respond to the various comments.
Detailed editorials should be published as soon as the contest ends.
Sponsor guidelines are here.