Perfectly Reasonable Question No. 5: On Comment ‘Picks’

Each weekday, about 10,000 comments from readers come to The Times’s Web site. Not all are published but of those that are, some â€" perhaps 10 percent - are awarded a beribboned notation called an “NYT Pick.”

Those picks have the aura of a gold star awarded by the teacher and are no doubt gratifying to the writers receiving them, but they sometimes cause disagreement among other readers.

One who wrote to me about this recently was Lauren O’Connell of Ithaca, N.Y., who objected to the recognition given to a comment on an editorial about the next Federal Reserve chairman. The comment said, in part: “I don’t think that this is a women’s job. And the reason is that to inspire confidence there is a certain degree of virility required.” It went on to suggest Paul Krugman, a Times columnist and economics professor, for the role.

Ms. O’Connell wrote that she found the choice to specially acknowledge this comment “alarming and offensive.”

I have long wondered who “picks” the Times Picks, and based on what criteria, and this one was just egregious enough for me to seek out the public editor. Is The Times agreeing, via its “pick,” with the notion that the Fed chairmanship is not “a woman’s job” and requires “virility”? Perhaps the paper is agreeing with the suggestion of Krugman for the job, but to “pick” this misogynistic post is very un-Times, it seems to me.

I talked with Bassey Etim, who as The Times’s community manager, oversees commenting. He agreed that this “pick” was not chosen well, since it seems to endorse a sexist point of view.

“Picking that may have been a mistake,” Mr. Etim told me on Thursday. “There are mistakes on NYT picks.”

He said, however, that the choice of a comment as a “pick” is not intended to show agreement with the message. The picks are chosen to “give a range of interesting or thoughtful perspectives - kind of a Cliffs Notes version of the whole discussion that is taking place” within the comments on that article. That explanation will be added to the FAQs by the end of this week, he said, and it’s been an oversight not to have it there previously, he said.

Sometimes, the picks can be used for a specific purpose. For example, to highlight location â€" on an article about Brazil, the picks might be given to commenters from Brazil, he said.

The picks are made by a staff of about 13 mostly part-time moderators, all of whom are journalists, he said, and reviewed by a supervisor to make sure that “there is a good mix of views.”

“But they are not endorsements,” he said. Times bloggers usually do not rely on the moderation staff but do their own comment moderation and choose their own picks.

“Picks can cause consternation but I think they serve the reader because they highlight a range of opinion,” Mr. Etim said. “We favor literate, smart, insightful comments, and those that address an opposite or minority point of view.” Witty comments also are good candidates for the recognition, he said.

Like the reader, Ms. O’Connell, I’ve been puzzled by some of the choices I’ve seen, and always assumed a pick was, in some sense, an endorsement of the content.

For what it’s worth, the public editor’s office, though it once employed the “picks” system on blog posts and columns, doesn’t do so now since it seems contrary to our role of representing all Times readers. We do read the comments carefully, and appreciate those who take the time to write.

This week I answered questions from Times readers. On Wednesday I wrote about the use of direct quotations and about identifying writers of letters to the editor. On Thursday I took up Web links and vulgarity as well a question about the use of brand names in Times articles.

And with that, I head off the grid for a vacation. I will be back in about 10 days.