Queue
From Voice of the Proletariat
People submit stuff, then people vote on it. The submitted thing floats about for around two hours. Every so often, the top voted thing makes it to the main page. Queueshitting is generally frowned upon. Calling out other bNers by name is also considered poor form, and is against the unofficial rules.
[edit] How do I use it?
You'll notice there are two options to vote for each non-discussion item in the queue. The first is for the link itself, and below that is one or more headlines. Vote the link up or down as you choose, and if any of the headlines grab your attention, vote for it as well, or submit your own by clicking the Options link. The Options link also contains duplicate reporting and additional voting options, in addition to a tool to see who voted how. Note that voting for a headline automatically throws in your vote for the link. If you care enough about the thing to vote on a headline, you automatically vote it up.
To submit an article, use the form at the bottom left. Put the address in the "URL" box, and put a headline (hopefully an amusing, funny, or attention-grabbing one--shorter is better) in the "Headline" box. Select the "SFW" or "NSFW" radio button, and whether you'd like to see anonymous posting enabled, and then hit the "submit query" button at the bottom. To submit a discussion, use the form at the bottom right. Put a headline in the "Headline" box, then put a short paragraph on the subject of the discussion in the "Question" box. Select "SFW" or "NSFW" as appropriate, and then hit the "submit query" button at the bottom.
There is a tagging box here, as well. It follows the same rules as tagging elsewhere. Tag things to help make tag filtering more effective.
[edit] How it works
Every 12 minutes the highest-rated headline of whichever type is next to be picked gets promoted to the front page. This could be the highest rated story, the highest rated discussion, or the highest rated link of any type. Note that the only time an NSFW submission will be frontpaged is when "any type" is being promoted. This makes it somewhat harder to get an NSFW link through, in order to prevent bNers from going blind. If the top-rated item is set to expire before the next headline is due to go to the main page, its time remaining will dip into the negative until it is promoted to the front page or it is no longer the highest rated item. Following the most recent queue redesign, a headline must have a combined score of 4.5 or higher to make the frontpage.
