Early on blogs and local forums got flooded with spam bots, and trolls, though come to think of it; Trolls were never a huge problem before, as Netiquette helped separate wheat from the chaff. In hindsight it seems like a more concerted effort ending in disabling of public comment threads, and consolidation on social media sites. Nowadays anti-spam bots are more accessible, so it should be possible to revive local forums.