"Karma observations: if you reply in the early morning, before everyone gets up and reads HN, you'll get more karma than if you reply in the middle of the night

"Karma observations: if you reply in the early morning, before everyone gets up and reads HN, you'll get more karma than if you reply in the middle of the night when no-one will see it." This goes double for being an early riser on the East Coast! Until recently I commented early in the morning for a few months. I fared well - I usually got the top comment in the thread, unless a power user struck first. I don't think my comments were particularly insightful, but the timing worked - they would stay above the fold long enough to pick up an upvote. The "shape" of a comment also seems to affect the rating. A quick summary followed by several reasonable-sized paragraphs is a local maximum for gathering karma.