While the changes have improved the performance of the blog in many respects, one problem is that I’m now relying on Akismet to detect spam, which produces lots of false positives. The first-best solution would be lock every spammer on the planet far away from any Internet-connected device. Since that won’t happen, I’m inviting commenters whose comments disappear into Akismet limbo to email me and I will try to extract them (no promises on this, but I’ll do my best).
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John Quiggin 
Can’t you put regular commenters on a whitelist?I use Spam Karma 2 on my admittedly low traffic site, and it allows you to fiddle the scores and weights any way you like.
I cop a lot of porno-spam and it has never let one through – and the only valid commenter it ever blocked was a it of a nutter so I let it ride!
if you just want to hear from yer mates, a whitelist is the answer. if you just want to broadcast, don’t allow comment and sequester yer email.
alas, the point of blogs is inviting strangers in. life is so inconvenient! the truth is, whenever life becomes convenient, we go looking for trouble, out of boredom.
A whitelist need not be exclusive – it just ensures that regulars don’t get binned. That said, I don’t know if Akismet has such a facility, nor if it works easily.
I also noticed JQ got a false negative, now deleted, from a troll(op). I’d rather not have to wade through that stuff, even to read points of view with which I disagree.
Obvious solution: two groups: ones that can cope with spam and those that can’t. Offer a ‘premium’ site (possible names: Quiggin Deluxe, Quiggin Supreme, Quiggin Meatlovers (?), QuiggBling etc…) that costs money to access and filters spam, and the basic site (Quiggin Ham and Pineapple?) for free to those that can deal with the spam. Those that face a high implicit cost of spam will take the paysite, and those that have learned how to scroll can use the free sight. (Weakly) Pareto improvements for all!
Is there nothing self-selection and second degree price discrimination cannot fix? 😀