At flooble there are 40 problems in the queue. (this may not be true but lets just pretend it is.) A few crazy hackers somehow manage to promote themselves to scholars. On the first day the first hacker will vote thumbs up on all problems displayed.(The 10 most recent) On the second day the second hacker votes thumbs down on every second problem. On the third day the third hacker votes thumbs up on every third problem. And so on and so on. (When it gets to the eleventh day the eleventh hacker will do what the first hacker did)

How many days will it take for every problem in the queue to be live on the site?

Note: For those who don't know there are only 10 problems that can be voted thumbs up or thumbs down every day and these problems are the 10 least recent. Also a problem with three thumbs up will be posted to the site and taken out of queue. Only one problem can be posted to the site per day. Also if a problem gets 3 thumbs down it is deleted.

Btw: for those who like an extra challenge what if one problem is submitted every 3 days?

Also: A hacker will always vote before a problem becomes live.

(In reply to To restate everything by Alan)

Adding to the above that
4. Those that reach +3 continue getting votes and therefore occupy one of the 10 voting slots.
5. A voting position freed up by a post doesn't actually get voted on until the next day. (This in fact is a rule which prevents all from posting, i.e., resulting in rejects, as it prevents those friendly 1 mod 10 guys from giving thumbs up to multiple people while adding posts.)

A computer simulation produces the last post (problem 37 in the original queue) on day 181, with problems 14 and 34 being rejected and the others having been posted.

Posted by Charlie on 2003-02-28 04:05:14