I think they died when Facebook Comments and Disqus grew like weeds. they promised less spam, faster loading times, easier to use on multiple sites, etc. It became way easier to handle things that way rather than deal with all of the spam and trolls.

they pretty much died with the rise of community sites like reddit and such. people post links and comment there.

This was my thought as well. Then I started thinking about the huge amount of moderation effort to make sure that comment sections stay civil. From where I stand it seems like for most writers offering a comment section is a lot of work for a very small payoff.

If you think of it from the perspective of "building and maintaining a jail" yes, it is hard. You as the blog admin represent the warden, and as such are the enemy

But if you have the inmates police themselves (like the reddit community), problem solved.

"Solved" only in the sense that "the community" polices itself to become something that most in "the community" consider desirable (or at least acceptable). But that might not be the kind of community the blog author/owner wants.

To put it in concrete terms: HN is moderated. Reddit is policed by the inmates. Which is a better community? I'll take HN by a fair distance.

> I'll take HN by a fair distance.

I understand where you're coming from.

That being said, I knew reddit will begine to wobble when it went corporate