So I am new, and I have been trying to figure out the shifts thing... I search the shifts and I do not see my username on that list. But I have been mining since last sunday, been 1 week now. So, after reading this, I am a bit worried that I will not be included in the next block? I am listed however on the POOL STATS page.
You will be included in the next block and the block after that and so on. The length of time it takes to become fully paid via 5Nd varies depending on how often we are finding blocks. Since the overall Hash rate has lowered the 5 to 7 days is now around 2 weeks before you are fully paid. Your payments are not forgotten, however. You will get paid for the next block and some payment from the first block will be added to the second block payment. The payments are broken up into 20% or 1/5 pieces, (the 5 in the 5Nd). So your first 20% will be paid on the first block, and the second block you will get another 20% from the first block plus 20% from the second block, and so on until you are getting 100% for each block but that 100% is actually made up of pieces of 20% from previous blocks added together. The other side of the coin is that if you stop mining and a block is hit, you will get 80%,60%, 40% etc even after you stop mining. So the ramp down makes up for the ramp up in the beginning, overall.