Another thing that's changed since 2006 is that I think publisher thinking about commenters has evolved to where they no longer see them as adding business value. Gawker made great attempts to court and build a commenting community on its sites from 2006-2009 only to decide that the commenters weren't really creating much value and were more trouble than they were worth. Now commenting is almost an afterthought on their sites and they don't really care to make it more readable.
i.e. Facebook comments might be a great fit for Techcrunch. They're dangerless and require little to no moderation.
Another thing that's changed since 2006 is that I think publisher thinking about commenters has evolved to where they no longer see them as adding business value. Gawker made great attempts to court and build a commenting community on its sites from 2006-2009 only to decide that the commenters weren't really creating much value and were more trouble than they were worth. Now commenting is almost an afterthought on their sites and they don't really care to make it more readable.
i.e. Facebook comments might be a great fit for Techcrunch. They're dangerless and require little to no moderation.