I guess the difference is that you link out as necessary for your human visitors and you just don't worry about it - but you balance it with inbound links.
And review any links in comments thoroughly. I have a chap commenting on one post every day and pretty soon he'll be slapped but for now his site is good and his comments are relevant so I'm keeping an eye on him.
I'd be lost without
Akismet though to detect and scrap the spammers.