Article snippet: The Reader Center is one way we in the newsroom are trying to connect with you, by highlighting your perspectives and experiences and offering insight into how we work. An object of both obsession and derision during the 2016 presidential election, The New York Times’s election tracking needle returned to the national spotlight during Tuesday’s Alabama Senate race, accurately predicting a victory for the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, over his Republican rival, Roy S. Moore. Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent who covers elections, polling and demographics for The Upshot, tweeted about the race. Our live results election page, featuring the needle, received more than 13 million page views, making it among our most-read pieces published this year. The needle inspired a #NYTNeedle hashtag and several memes. John Muyskens, a graphics editor at The Washington Post, worked with Arthur Shlain from the Noun Project to turn it into a mesmerizing GIF. Quartz anthropomorphized it and allowed it to write a column about its comeback. The Times’s election needle predicts the outcome of an election based on incoming results, prior election results and demographic data. The needle debuted in the 2016 presidential primaries and reappeared during this year’s Georgia and Virginia elections, where it also helped call the results accurately. Our graphics department and the Upshot desk partnered to develop the tool as a cutting-edge means of “visualizing uncertainty,” said Jeremy ... Link to the full article to read more