The LR may be the editor but may not be any of the authors of the article; the LR should be selected from those with the greatest expertise in the relevant area. We would prefer that this be a Nupedia peer reviewer; but if none of the present peer reviewers have adequate expertise in an area, the editor should try to find someone from outside of Nupedia to help with this task, on an ad hoc basis if necessary. Generally speaking, the LR for an article should be an expert on the subject of the article.
To assign an article to an LR, the editor simply writes the Nupedia UserID in the appropriate place in the article information page and then saves changes.
The identity of the LR is initially to be kept hidden from the writer, and vice-versa. To this end, the Nupedia system sends to the LR and the writer the web address of a page that they can use to discuss the article with each other anonymously.
If an LR needs to be replaced partway through the lead review stage, it will be useful to entirely erase the old reviewer's UserID from the article information form, temporarily moving the article back to the stage of Finding a Lead Reviewer. When the new LR UserID is supplied, again, an information e-mail (which will be very helpful to the LR) will be sent.