I think it's kind of non-linear. You have a user with ~18000 karma wagering against a user with ~6000 karma. Moving from 18000 to 17000 karma would have no im

I think it's kind of non-linear. You have a user with ~18000 karma wagering against a user with ~6000 karma. Moving from 18000 to 17000 karma would have no impact on rms' HN experience or general ranking. Similarly, paul is not going to get any big bump in going from 6000 to 7000. Now, if paul was a new user with 5 karma, the 1000 point bump would open up options on HN that he did not previously have. It would also boost his perceived ranking slightly from an unvetted newbie to someone with roughly first-tier status. So, the value of 1000 karma isn't some baseline value multiplied by 1000. It varies by user based on the relative impact it has to that user.