I know images can be archived after a month in New Images so I have no complaints about two Flower images of mine "Pink Shades - Passion" (c-index 79, 20 votes), and "Dont Worry - Bee Happy" (c-index 80, only 17 votes) being archived.
They were uploaded on 27/3/07 and 28/3/07 respectively.

However, I have images still in New Images- Flowers from as far back as 8/3/07 with much lower scores.
I thought they would have been dealt with by order of date. I am disappointed that some of my higher rated images are now scrapped, (especially after just 17 votes) while other lower value ones remain in New Images for much longer.

It takes away some of the pleasure of receiving a relatively high score.

For moving, the mods have a special tool called "wallpaper selection". With this tool, we can classify the new images by date, c-index, author, gallery, ...
So, we can select (for example) "new boats photos which are more than 30 days old and got a c-index higher than 50".
You know, it's a very hard job to select, look, analyze and finally to decide which image can be promoted or archived.
The final process consists in visiting the new images gallery by date and to archive (or sometimes to promote) the oldest images. We are a little late for this last work.
Please, don't shot the pianist... ;-)

I have never shot anything in my life, and certainly not pianists, I like music too much. :)
From your explanation Pierre I now understand that date of upload is not always significant in the selection process.
It was a query more than a critism. I guess my bee was just unlucky to recieve fewer votes.
Or perhaps the opposite, it may have gone down lol

I like music too... A pity I don't play piano! ;-)