Good point that karma as applied to users is an average. I've done some flaming here I'm not proud of. I meant that points applied to posts and comments are sup

Good point that karma as applied to users is an average. I've done some flaming here I'm not proud of. I meant that points applied to posts and comments are supposed to be a measure of quality. If we start going solely on reputation of the poster we've merely set up a pantheon and kicked away the ladder. You're right that the velocity of the /newest page is the biggest problem. There may be a UI way of encouraging more upvotes. But I think it's still down to culture if we want to maintain the overall quality.