Project Euler Forum

Hello, fourm!

This is a migrated account, from an old account of mine which is "permanently unlisted" by the PE admin team, in Sep 2025, due to the misconduct of myself. (For relevant information, please refer to https://projecteuler.chat/viewtopic.php?p=73428#p73428.)

I apologize for the misconduct, but what is done is done, and I want to continue enjoy solving PE problems. Being unlisted makes that less motivated, so I registered this new account.

I've been actively participating in the newest problems, especially in these two months. Being currently solved 78 problems, this account is still not reached the "established status" explained in https://projecteuler.net/about=private_locked. After some nice conversation in the Discord server with other members, especially hacatu (best wishes!), I realized something. I quote

When people simply enter one answer after another in succession to several problems, they are not using Project Euler in the way it was intended and they show little respect for the time and care taken to curate each problem. Consequently, whilst this behaviour pattern continues, they are effectively making a choice to exclude themselves from the Project Euler community.

If this has been short lived, then after a sustained period of carefully pondering each problem before submitting an answer and taking the time to read the posts in the problem threads, there is a good chance that you will be able earn the trust of the system.

However, if this has been a persistent pattern of behaviour for quite some time, it is most likely that the only remedy will be resetting your progress or creating a new account.

...from https://projecteuler.net/about=private_locked. It seems that possibly due to I solved problems "at an unrealistic rate", or put it in other words "simply enter one answer after another in succession to several problems", I'm stuck in locked private status. But that's mainly because I was migrating from my old account and submitting multiple problems at the day I registered. As shown in my Progress—History page, I solved 13 problems at 27 Sep 25, 10 of them are problems #1~#10, and 3 of them are the newest ones I solved in my old account. Similar pattern occured at 29 Sep 25, 02 Oct 25, 08 Oct 25, 04 Nov 25, 06 Nov 25, 28 Dec 25, and 09 Feb 26, where I solved >=4 problems in one day. But all of them have the same reason which is I was submitting answers I obtained in the previous account.

One reason I want to reach established so desperately, in these two days, is that the system seemed to be updated last couple of days, and the bot in the Discord server is not functioning well, especially around this locked-private account, making me not able to read problem-specific channel in the server, which I enjoyed a lot from them.

Here I kindly ask any of the PE team members: What should I do to get rid of the locked private status? Or can someone check my history and free me manually?

Best regards.

There was a lot of talk about cheaters trying to feel good by getting onto the fastest solvers lists etc. Then, there was also talk about someone who put some effort into the problem and would like to know what they were missing so they might be interested in putting the answer in. And then, there was talk about someone who wants to use Project Euler problems as programming examples instead of math problems, so they might be interested in just putting the answer in so they could just recode the solution in their favorite programming language.

All of these above scenarios are handled by the changes made to the Project Euler Website. In fact, a big kudos to whom ever came up with the "unrealistic problem-solving rate" heuristic to flag the bad cheaters (just put the answer in) from good cheaters (who actually take the time to understand the solution and recode the solution in their favorite programming language).

The following is true: someone (plus the Project Euler Problem Development Team) put a lot of effort into coming up with a Project Euler Problem, and simply entering the answer is disrespecting their efforts. If you enter an answer because solving the problem is beyond your abilities, at least take some time to learn the math/computing techniques needed to solve the problem.

@newPinkRabbit: At this stage, based on your solve history, I can confirm that it would be very difficult to reach an established status any time soon. Not impossible, but it would take a long time. You have cited the reasons yourself, so you do seem to understand why this would be the case. You face two options: 1) continue solving and take your time with each problem, 2) reset your progress ("unsolve" all problems) from your account page and do it properly from the beginning. As @pleasant.timepass says, the whole point of Project Euler is to take your time and enjoy the problems. It's essentially a single player game experience whilst you're solving a problem, then afterwards, if you desire to share your experiences, you actually have something meaningful to discuss with the community.

euler wrote: Thu Feb 26, 2026 6:15 pm @newPinkRabbit: At this stage, based on your solve history, I can confirm that it would be very difficult to reach an established status any time soon. Not impossible, but it would take a long time. You have cited the reasons yourself, so you do seem to understand why this would be the case. You face two options: 1) continue solving and take your time with each problem, 2) reset your progress ("unsolve" all problems) from your account page and do it properly from the beginning. As @pleasant.timepass says, the whole point of Project Euler is to take your time and enjoy the problems. It's essentially a single player game experience whilst you're solving a problem, then afterwards, if you desire to share your experiences, you actually have something meaningful to discuss with the community.

Thank you for replying! Can I understand the second option as, by resetting the progress, it can make the solving history "totally clean", and it makes no difference compared to a newly created account? And the previous solving "at an unrealistic rate" should have no (negative) effect when starting over? If it is that so then I will definitely consider this.

Absolutely. It wipes the slate clean as if you are a new account starting over. The only exception to this is when an account that has been manually flagged by an admin, but there are no issues with your account newPinkRabbit. If you reset your progress and after a period of time you haven't earned an established status, please get back to me and I will look into it.

I will do it, thanks!