My submitted problems are given a "queue weight" under votes/notes.
Could someone please explain what this means? Thanks.

Thanks Dustin

Percy dear, I have read this QW discussion over and over again and am still confused. The influence of QW on the queue is a D6 problem for me. Read TomM's comment in Dustin's link above and you will see that QW in fact doesn't change a thing. The oldest problem still goes in the queue first.
And the problem still seem to exist: a new user understands that it takes a while before his/her problem is published and accepts to wait for a while, say three weeks, a month, six weeks, but then he/she looses patience and leaves.
Check the new problems, check the last log in of the person that posted that problem and you will see that this person hasn't logged in for 4...6 weeks.
I think this is a serious problem: those new members are the future of the site. Especially when they want to take the effort of posting a problem we should do our best to keep them. Avoiding the long waiting time would help.
Unless I am seriously misunderstanding the way QW works, I think this system should be investigated/changed.

Quote Percy about the queue:
"Why are JM/Shlolers reluctant to disscus the issue at hand? [sic]"

Well, I'm a JM/Scholar, and I'm discussing it. I actually enjoy explaining the queue system, because it's interesting and a challenge. However, most of us don't discuss "solutions" to the queue "problem" because there aren't really any practical solutions, and because not everyone agrees that there is even a problem. A practical solution must be something we can all agree on (especially Levik), and must be easy to implement within Levik's short time. This topic has actually been discussed quite a lot (even more in our secret forum--not that such a thing exists).

Yes, many people in the past have become upset because of the long queue length. But what can we do about it? Put every user's first 1-3 problems in the front? I'm not so sure that would solve the problem. Also, the opportunity for abuse is much worse, and more obvious (already enough for Levik to go against this solution).

The QW system re-explained...again

1. What does the QW system do, exactly?
Every midnight, EST, the order of the queue undergoes a recalculation. First, each problem is assigned a QW. Each user's first two problems receive QW 1, the next two receive QW 2, the next two receive QW 3, etc. Note that a QW 2 puzzle will eventually be reassigned QW 1 after the user's other puzzles exit the queue. Second, the queue is reordered so that problems with lower QW appear in front. If two problems have the same QW, they are ordered according to submission date.

2. Why was the QW system first created?
It was originally created because Ravi Raja, according to Perplexus legends, had completely dominated the queue with 300+ problems. For a long time, I imagine, there was nothing but Ravi, which was okay, because Ravi wasn't a terrible puzzle writer, and voters would still filter out unsatisfactory puzzles. But what about everyone else? And so, Levik created the QW system, which sped up everyone else's puzzles, and allowed more variety (but I think it eventually scared away Ravi). As it was originally, each user had 3 puzzles with QW 1, rather than 2.

3. What are the effects of the QW system?
Only QW 1 puzzles will appear in the front. QW 2 puzzles will never, never, appear in the front. At all times, voters can see and vote on the 10 puzzles in the front of the queue. Because each user can only have two QW 1 puzzles at a time, voters can only look at two puzzles of a single user at a time. Therefore, whenever a scholar posts a problem, he/she has at least 5 users' puzzles to choose from.

This should not affect you unless you have three or more puzzles submitted close together. The third puzzle will have to wait for one of the first two to exit the queue (either by posting, or deleting). However, once this happens, the third puzzle will act as if it were never delayed; it might go straight to the front of the queue. So pcbouhid, our current top submitter, will have exactly two problems in the front for a long time. If he cares to keep track of each of his puzzles, he should probably be happy about this (but I don't speak for him).

So the QW system slows down puzzles that are submitted close together. It is like a speed limit because on average, no single user can post more than 1/5 of the puzzles during any time period. As for the rest of the puzzles that aren't slowed down, the QW system theoretically should indiscriminately speed them up.

4. What are the side effects of the QW system?
Recall that the queue is not recalculated every second, but every day. Whenever a problem exits the queue, the puzzles beyond the front 10 can be viewed. Often, they disappear again because the next day, some QW 2 puzzles are reassigned QW 1, and will appear at the front of the queue, pushing others out.

Because QW recalculation can push problems straight to the front of the queue, the queue doesn't really move whenever big submitters' problems are posted. As a result, the "approximate queue position" may move frustratingly slowly. It may move slowly, but you might notice that when you first submit a problem, it doesn't exactly start at the back of the queue, because of all the QW 2+ problems behind it. The fact that the queue position starts low is misleading, as is the slow queue movement--they half cancel each other out. If you want a better approximation of the queue wait, ask a JM/Scholar for the submission date of puzzle number 10 in the queue.

Wow, thanks for that Tristan, I'm starting to see some light. So as I understand it QW really just acts to shuffle a few other peoples puzzles in amongst pcb's entries. And the painfully slow progression of your first submissions will be counterbalanced by the qw2s being accelerated up the list later on?

Thanks Gamer also, though why you want to filter ppl out I don't understand? I'm sure plenty of perfectly intelligent, potentially valuable members get filtered out along with the riff-raff.

Once again I am missquoted, Tristan said "Quote Percy about the queue:
"Why are JM/Shlolers reluctant to disscus the issue at hand? [sic]" This quote is from a forum that was never intended to relate to QW but was regarding why we could not have problems posted every third or quarter rotation so as to be fairer on the world. You can find the lack of debate on this issue over <two a day?>here<!>.

Well, this way, each problem gets its 12 hours of fame.

I suppose we could increase the posting rate, but that will only happen when we're convinced that each puzzle gets more than enough attention (and we're not). Even then, we would argue that most users want to be able to keep track of all the new problems. With 2 a day, that's hard enough.

Some people just like to chat on the forums and in the chatterbox, and not submit as many problems. Similarly, some people like to submit problems instead of solving them. If you don't want to solve problems, then you probably won't want to stay here, and I would imagine that's why a lot of people don't stick around.