how important is relevancy?

ok, i know that links from related content are better for seo than non-relevant content. got that.

however, i am a member of several forums where they do allow sig links, for example. some are very well indexed, and i've started linking back to my (non-topical) site. also in blog comments and the like, i've started including my link, as another example, regardless of the blog topics.

does this contribute to the overall effort albeit less helpful than links from topically related sites, or is hurting me more than helping?

input appreciated.

They should be helpful, especially since you can get some direct clickthroughs. Just avoid bad neighborhoods such as sites overloaded with spam links, link farms, or sites with adult content, etc.

thanks for the advice. i had wanted to know about this before encouraging my members to do links to us as well, and now i know.