martinibuster - 7:31 am on May 5, 2008 (gmt 0)

...if you are the type of person who actively pursues these types of tactics.

I think maybe idolw was not addressing that part of the question. If bad inbounds alone negatively affected rankings then the rankings of many quality sites would have dropped because of all the scrapers and cloakers linking to them. I think that's what idolw is addressing.

But when you combine spammy inbounds with an active pursuit of a specific negative result, that's a different situation. So i think you're both right. :)