---
title: "Editor's Picks: pens we select by hand"
description: "The home page no longer shows the six most liked pens: it shows a random six of those the editors selected. On the showcase they have a filter of their own and a label on the card."
url: https://penlab.space/blog/editors-picks
language: en
section: "Updates"
published: 2026-10-09T12:00:00Z
updated: 2026-10-10T22:04:18Z
translation: https://penlab.space/blog/ru/editors-picks
---

# Editor's Picks: pens we select by hand

The home page no longer shows the six most liked pens: it shows a random six of those the editors selected. On the showcase they have a filter of their own and a label on the card.

The Penlab home page has a section with the work of members. Until now it held the six pens with the most likes.

## What was wrong

Such a selection has two weak spots.

The first — the set hardly changed. A pen that once collected likes stayed on the home page for weeks, and new work could not get there: nobody sees it, so it has no likes either.

The second — likes can be inflated. The more visible the place on the home page, the more sense it makes to do so.

The like counter itself is not at fault: it honestly shows what people liked. But this number alone cannot decide what a person sees on their first visit.

## How it works now

We select pens by hand and mark them as **Editor's Picks**. Of the selected ones the home page shows a random six, and the set and the order differ on every load. Reload the page — and other work is there.

If fewer than six pens are selected so far, all of them are shown.

On the [showcase](https://penlab.space/showcase) the selected pens have a place of their own:

- the type filter, next to Originals and Forks, has an [Editor's Picks](https://penlab.space/showcase?type=picks) item — it works together with sorting and search;
- the card of a selected pen carries an "Editor's Picks" label. The same label is visible on the home page and on the author's page.

The ordinary showcase is still there: sorting by likes, by date and by views works as before, and all pens take part in it.

## How a pen gets picked

There are no applications and no form. We look through the showcase and mark pens that are interesting to open: a neat animation, an unexpected trick in plain CSS, a clear demo that invites you to play with it. Both an original and a fork can be marked.

A few details:

- the mark stays if the author keeps editing the pen;
- a fork of a selected pen does not inherit the mark — it is already different work.

The choice is subjective, and we do not hide it. In return, the home page now shows different work, not the same six.

To get a pen noticed, save it with a clear title, and it will appear on the showcase. A [new pen](https://penlab.space/new) is a place to start.