Help me understand Bitminter please!

[Byteme]

I seemed to notice the Expected per block value changes quite frequently and seems to be tied directly to the total hashrate of the Bitminter Pool. However today I noticed this value was cut down dramatically. Yesterday it was around 0.00431987, but as you can see today another "0" as sneaked in between the decimal and the numbers I care about. (The difficulty hasn't changed since yesterday)

So I ask you...can you help me understand what determines this Expected per block value? And possibly why it was cut down so much? 

Thanks in advance for you taking the time to help explain this subject to me. I am still very new to the bitcoin scene, but I am trying to flood my brain with knowledge on this subject. So please help if you can and feel up to it! 

-Byteme

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/ae152/stonedfreedom/wtf_zps56388fa9.png

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[Byteme]

I will also add that before I logged in tonight ,to review my account, the Expected per block value was rising as was the total pool hashrate. When the hashrate dipped down so did the block value. I am just totally at a loss of words right now.

[Byteme]

I decided to use the contact button on www.bitminter.com and received a very speedy reply from Geir H. Hansen, BitMinter operator. Very friendly gentleman and took the time to say this:

"the pay per block is calculated based on the amount of work in the last
10 shifts that belong to you. If you do more work (your hashrate goes
up) it will go up. If the pool hashrate goes up (others do more work) it
will go down, but at the same time we get more blocks per day, so your
average payout is the same. If you take a break from mining then your
pay per block will be longer until that break is not among the last 10
shifts anymore."

He went on to say in another message:

" Pay per block will be back up again after
your machine has been working for a while."

So... the longer you mine at Bitminter, your Expected per block value will/should increase (to a certain point I'd imagine there is some limit or cap). Other attributes that will increase your expected per block value:
Adding more hash power to your rig.
Others on the Bitminter Pool increasing their hash power.
Keeping low downtime on your miners.

This makes sense as my internet was out for nearly a whole day, which was a lot of shifts that I missed out on. Once that "gap" wasn't in the shift history (Last 10 shifts) my block value returned to normal

I hope this helps others. I know I was pretty confused and a little sad 

[klondike_bar]

think of it as a delay. It will take about 12hrs to get up to the optimal (or nearly there) btc/block.

if you stop mining, you will keep seeing block payouts that dwindle for ~12hrs to 0 btc/block