'NYT' Introduces New 'Comments' Options

You can now highlight, vote on others, and more -- trying it out here. And here. And here. Only at select blogs so far. But you will have to register. What they say:

For the first time, readers will be able to recommend the best comments to other readers. We will also have the ability to highlight comments that strike us as especially interesting and informative. And if we jump into the comment stream to reply to you, you will be able to see our replies next to the original comment.

The new system also allows you to sort comments in a variety of ways with a single click: newest first, oldest first, readers’ recommendations, editors’ selections and comments to which we’ve replied.

The biggest change, which some commenters might dislike but we feel will improve the quality of the discussion: All comment contributors will need to register for a free NYTimes.com account, if they don’t already have one.