This thought was brought to you/sponsored by my perception that there's an increasing number of comments on Tildes that attempt to "answer" questions posed in the titles of posts, but don't necessarily demonstrate that the user has read the article before commenting. I won't link specific comments, but I've noticed a fair bit of it as of late. I get that those titles bait people into voicing their opinion, but often it's at the detriment of overall discussion. Should a prerequisite of clicking the actual link in question be a requirement before the user is allowed to post a top level comment? Or perhaps a cooldown period of entering a thread versus commenting may help?

The goal here would be to disincentivise the posting of "driveby" or similarly reductive comments that often don't demonstrate nuance or knowledge that is conveyed in the associated article. Sure, we can't ever know if the user has actually read the article, but it's not designed to be a foolproof strategy, just a discouraging one.

There's a few ways this could be implemented, probably via the utilization of a small bit of javascript that toggle's a user's reading state for a particular post. Thoughts?

Just to clarify since I've edited this post: I mean top-level comments only. Replies are more likely to be in response to the parent comment, rather than the title and wouldn't be affected by this proposal.

Longest piece to date?

Last night I saw a beast

four different heads with blackened eyes.

Not black in metaphor, but from

the blood that dried inside.

Each of seven legs was mangled

and the beast was blind

but she could fly.

.

Once upon a night so dreary,

and so dreadful I

came across a weathered bar

a woman stood inside.

She sat me at a table, there was

not a soul in sight

but I felt fine.

.

Then she brought a glass of dark with

something new inside.

Leaned in close and whispered to me

"Baby, close your eyes."

I parted my lips and drank as

her hand guided mine.

My guard resigned.

.

She said "I know a place where you can

truly feel alive.

Each one of your problems fall

defenseless by your side."

And she wrapped her arms around me

I contently sighed

as she took flight.

---

Her wretched and misshapen legs

held me close to her chest.

She let out her warning cries

i inhaled every breath.

Her claws were creeping out I

fell upon them like a bed.

I laid to rest.

.

I fell into a home so oddly

shallow and recessed.

The walls were made of rock,

a water drop fell on my head.

There was no single light,

the ceiling lowered as she led

me to her den.

.

As I looked around the room birthed

questions in my head.

So opposite the warmth that she

had first on me impressed...

She stroked my cheek, claws on my chin

my heart fluttered, digressed.

I was possessed.

.

She laid me on the floor and stood with

five legs for each end.

One aside my head and feet

another at my hands.

Then she gently laid a blanket

down over my head,

"Shall we commence?"

---

I still feel it so vividly

each night I fall asleep,

the fused infatuated fear I felt

at a monster's feet,

when that heinous eldritch horror

drained my blood from me,

took me for libation, prayed a tithe

she poured me out.

Her heart could call the kettle as it,

too, went black in drought

She bore her fangs and lowered,

took my body in her mouth.

She then carried me cliffside, like a dog

she threw me down.

My corpse then fell so far, on

impact, no audible sound.

The final earthly thing I heard,

her shriek, "The Gods are proud."

---

Now upon each night so dreary, she

crawls out to find

a source of poor, defenseless blood

that she can sacrifice.

She'll lure them in with gentle kisses

and sapphire eyes.

We all will die.

Epilogue.

On my way to death, I was met

with a choice instead.

I could end my life or help

ensure the gods were fed.

In the heat of fear and pain I

then nodded my head.

The halls of purgatory filled with

screams and smells of death,

as my eyes dried from the inside

and I then begat

five extra legs.

So what’s the deal with offices, amirite?

What if we gave a building full of adults enough money to get by. Oh, and also they have to drive 30-60 minutes to get here. And that time they spend on the way here? Yeah what if they just gave us that for free, and we made them pay for parking!

I know, I know, fantastic right? But listen, it’s not over yet. What if we also made the work pointlessly constrained to a particular 8-hour block in the day, five days a week so that they never have any personal time, even though this is all work they could get done in four hours a day and is fully capable of being completed on their own?

Fabulous!

——

So yeah, I don’t have free time. That means I’ve got a few half-ass pieces that I’ve been wanting to finish up for awhile.

Apparently bars are open today, so I’m gonna get sauced and get to it. Prepare for a small dump today. (Also I got some dummy minor news imma share in another post. Stay tuned if you want. Or don’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ all’s well.

Anyway here’s that piece now.

——-

I remember that time I forgot your

birthday

And that time was today

At 12:08 in the morning

And for a moment

I felt great.

.

My dear that was the first sign

That you were

Slipping on out of my mind

Today I’m sober in the morning

Feelin okay.

.

Well well-butrin what a surprise

When it done

Come on back to my mind

Now it’s 12:09 in the morning

And ain’t shit changed.

.

And in those 60 seconds

Girl I swear

I learned a lesson -

Depression is a woman

With your name.

I'm writing this in an attempt to explain more clearly some ideas about the dangers of having an oligopoly in control of the Web, and the current difficulties of discussing that without being taken as some kind of "free speech absolutist". It's an analogy and, as in any analogy, it's only valid to a certain extent. The important thing is for it to be valid enough to explain a point.

There was a city in which four companies had ended up owning every bar, except for a handful of them in the outskirts. Upon one moment, they started to regulate which kind of conversations could be held in their bars and which couldn't, something they had a legal right to do and felt was their responsibility. So they prohibited any racist, homophobic or sexually explicit conversation, as well as conversations which they thought could carry any risk for society as a whole. Almost no one could really object to that, after all who would defend that kind of behavior? Some far right gangs said it was against their right to free speech, but they were correctly answered that they didn't have any right to determine the conversation policy of bars that weren't theirs.

Others tried to point that, while that policy wasn't inherently wrong and those companies were in their right to implement it, in the past this was dealt with on a bar-per-bar basis, and although the immense majority of bars didn't allow that kind of behaviors, they had different degrees of flexibility about different topics so bars were more varied and diverse, and you were free to choose a bar which conformed to your interests.

But they were quickly accused of defending some supposed right of that people to be given a place to discuss and organize, and sometimes even accused of defending those ideas. "If you don't like how the Four Companies manage their bars, go elsewhere".

The problem is that the far right gangs and other kind of undesirable people, when forced to leave the Four Companies' bars, went straight to the bars in the outskirts, overflowing them. Some of those bars were already owned by far right people, others though the answer to the Four Companies was to keep a more tolerant policy, and were overtook by neo-nazis. The few independent bars that didn't accept to become far right havens were forced to implement policies not that far from those of the Four Companies, or else face a far right invasion. Their clients spent a lot of time discussing wether something was off-limits or not instead of just enjoying a good time like they did before, and those bars were also very small and far away. They were interesting places, to be sure, but they were cut apart from most of the night life of the city, which took place on the hundreds of Four Companies' bars.

But now, there was a growing problem. The Four Companies had started to prohibit other subjects, for several reasons that aren't really important. Some were distasteful subjects, other were against their political interests or the city council's. But, as the far right gangs kept stabbing people and trying to reclaim their "right" to be accepted into the Four Companies' bars, most people thought that the risk they posed weighed more than anything else.

But they were missing the point. In another nearby city, there were never a handful of companies owning most bars. Still most bars didn't allow far right gangs, and discussion was diverse and fun, and sometimes helpful to combat the excesses of the city council and local police. Still, there were some neo-nazi bars, and most bars had one or two unlikable people. Neo-nazi bars sometimes caused trouble and had to be closed by the police, most were not only under police surveillance but under the neighbors' surveillance too. And, as neo-nazis were a very small minority, if you didn't support the same team as the owner of your closest bar, you could go to another bar which supported your team without it being forcefully full of neo-nazis or otherwise disgusting people.

Both cities had neo-nazis and sometimes problems in their bars, although Four Companies' bars were quite more peaceful on average, as they were heavily policed in a uniform and homogeneous way. But they were lifeless too, and lots of interesting discussions and possibilities of neighbors facing local injustice together were lost forever. Everyone ended up thinking the same, watching the same, liking the same sports and supporting the same teams. Bars weren't a fun and exciting place anymore.

This is just an analogy, so it's limited. But I think it explains well my general view and worries on the subject, which have nothing to do with leaving free way to racists and neo-nazis. It has to do with putting an end to the oligopoly before it's too late.