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.
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.
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.
How it "really" works
You are a warrior and you must defend the queue at all costs. You control the flow of information, you are the gatekeeper that must know and see everything on the site. It's up to you, to decide, for everyone, what is or is not relevant. PRO-TIP:: you'll find that expanding the "options" under the up and down arrows, click that. Those "hidden" down-votes count for a full -1 vote and not just a stupid half point vote down. Use those, always. As for what to vote up, you'll be a hero if you're the one to get something through the queue. Hero or "nancy" points are accumulated for every hero of bannination. You're going to want to vote so fucking good, that the site says "Holy shit you're too fucking awesome at voting, hold on and let someone else vote a bit, lol."
Additionally, if you're the biggest attention whore on the planet, make sure that your only participation in the queue is limited to those threads which you have submitted. Otherwise, other articles worthy of being frontpaged might get frontpaged ahead of yours, and then how will people pay attention to you?
