It sounds like you want to use a rare occurrence (trix/aura argument) to justify a global change that benefits you (wanting to hide comments pointing out your encode issues).

* and soon you'll hear why it won't be done.

Can't and won't are 2 different things. I'll accept what ever the Admin decides on.

"But keep trying for another excuse why it can't be done when it can."

and soon you'll hear why it won't be done.

Normal people would just skim and move on. People with too much free time (read:chronically online) would complain about mundane stuff like this.

It doesn't have anything to do with bookmarking threads. I like to see what all the new comments are about anything from the last time I checked. But keep trying for another excuse why it can't be done when it can.
It's just a pain to click on a bunch "threads" to have them marked as read.

Yeah thing is this site doesn't work that way. If you're really interested in certain convos just bookmark the damn thread.

Try opening the "Trix vs Aura" page on mobile using the default mobile view (not the optional "View as Desktop" that some browsers have built-in). You’ll see that the comment section is constrained and doesn’t function properly... you can’t even post a comment, especially when replies to a message start piling up.

The comment section is simply not designed for mobile use.

Strongly against this being a default.
Currently AT is very much usable without enabling Javascript on any browser, even very old ones, needing JS to change what to display would suck.
If you don't want to see comments you could configure your adblock addon to hide #view_comments (id) for all comments or .comment (class). A compromise would be some option somewhere (like a cookie).

Not really considering that info is held in the cookie I assume because even after a reboot it indicates the ones I opened to read have been read.

@Admin:

Would it be possible to hide comments by default on all releases and add a "Reveal" button or something for users who want to read or post comments?

This would help avoid loading very large comment sections (for example, 180+ comments on some releases, such as the recent "Trix vs Aura" one), which can cause lag on certain devices and increase page load times on mobile. It would also reduce unnecessary bandwidth usage, even if the savings are relatively small.

I’d also like to point out that the current comment layout is not well suited for mobile viewing, and makes reading or posting comments on mobile quite difficult. Hiding comments by default would prevent unnecessary components (in this case, comments) from being loaded on those devices as well unless the user chooses to load them.

Miso Pork Bowl Ramen

I meant the "marked as read" feature. It's hard to implement that for the anon commenters.

Top right of the home page where it says "Latest Comments [view all]"

Is that even a feature here? Not sure what you are on about.