The idea isn't to punish people, IMHO, but to improve content for others reading the conversation. That comment doesn't contribute to the conversation, and in f

The idea isn't to punish people, IMHO, but to improve content for others reading the conversation. That comment doesn't contribute to the conversation, and in fact it confuses it, so it gets downvoted to where few will read it. Voting is about the readers, not the commenters. Personally, other than for determining specific capabilities such as downvoting, I think tracking karma per user does little good. Karma per comment - a bit of feedback on your comment - is useful.