I am not sure less people playing New Question, would have any effect on queue time. As it is set up now, the game plays 150 questions per week and they run only for the span of a week. Questions can get pulled out early based on whatever reject criteria are in play, or they can go inactive midweek and then come back (correction notices, dealt with behind the scenes maybe?)

Less people playing would only change the average number of times a new question gets played in its weeklong run. There are a number of variables that can change that number even beyond a stunted total from the question not being active for the entire span so my next statement is a little tough to judge seeing it from the outside, but for a question that runs the full 7 days uninterrupted, over the last two years at least, the number of plays seems to have held pretty steady at around 300 give or take ~20 plays.

My apologies, but I'm not going to jump to the conclusion that her questions not emerging from the single question cache was as a result of her browser not updating. I'm willing to accept this if I'm wrong; after this many years of the game, if Grace is the first author to have browser cache issues with her 'Accepted Contributions' page, then so be it.

This said, based on my knowledge of how the single question game cache operates from the editorial side, I'm confident in my response, and figured it would be a sufficient answer. Alternatively, you may know better.

Also, gracious1's original post to this thread was on the first day of a New Question week. It is possible the question in question was already active then and just did not have enough plays to show up on the "Rated Questions" list yet at that point if that is how she checked on it.

On the "My Contributions: Rated" list there is a minimum number of plays before a question shows itself (I want to say it is 30 but I am not positive). On "All Accepted Submissions" The updates come continuously and start to show right away after the first play