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Job Description

The Community team is looking for a new senior comment moderator. This position involves the review, approval and curation of reader comments in a fast-paced, ever-changing work environment.  The senior comment moderator will also assist the Community team editors with other key responsibilities, including assigning articles for moderation to other moderators and opening and closing articles for comment. The senior comment moderator will also be expected to select comments for NYT Picks, work with news desks to find candidates for Reporter Reply, provide analysis for various Audience team reports and support other initiatives of the Community team.

Readers come to our comments sections looking to participate in an informed and thoughtful debate on the most important news facing the world today. The New York Times is known within the industry as having one of the most thoughtful, robust and helpful comments sections.  

Our ideal candidate has a background in journalism and an interest in community building, preferably some experience with online discussion groups as a manager or contributor, and a willingness to help shape The Times’s roadmap for building communities within our comments.  Our ideal applicant will demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world

Key responsibilities:

• Moderate comments according to NYT comment moderation guidelines, maintaining a high-quality user experience

• Under general guidance from managers, decide when to open and close stories for comments

• Share insights about trends in comments with the Audience team and desks and contribute to daily, weekly and monthly reports about comments and reader engagement. These insights could be shared via Audience team channels, Community newsletters or other venues.

• Contribute copy to external-facing Community projects.

• Flag errors identified by readers to Community editors and relevant desk editors as needed.

• Contact commenters for permission to use their comments beyond the comment section of the site. Assist reporters in finding appropriate comments for reporter reply.

• Assist editors in carrying out community engagement plans.

• In addition, Senior Comment Moderators may be called upon to help ensure the smooth administrative operation of the Community team by performing a variety of tasks, including those of Comment Moderators.

• Track their work through team tools such as Slack, spreadsheets, Airtable and Google Docs.

• Perform related work as assigned.

• This pos