enigma1 - 2:21 pm on Sep 21, 2010 (gmt 0)

Penalties for gaming the system should be permanent.

Yes, but the problem is sites who follow these tactics are new for the most part. So they'll just get another domain and do the same again. If the algorithm can't filter them in the first place (dup content, spam, fraud etc) the problem will persist.

Then with old domains you can't easily tell when the administration changes in which case a penalty won't be effective in the long run.