Your point is well taken. It is up to each user to decide whether or not this is a disincentive to commenting in a particular thread. I use fluctuations in my

Your point is well taken. It is up to each user to decide whether or not this is a disincentive to commenting in a particular thread. I use fluctuations in my comment karma average as a reality check on how I am doing recently in making constructive, helpful comments. But I burn average karma sometimes in a) mentioning duplicate submissions (this kind of comment rarely gets an upvote, although I try to upvote most of Colin Wright's comments of the same kind) or b) answering direct follow-up questions someone asks me (which often aren't even upvoted by the person who asked the question). You can tell I care (at least a little) by the examples I'm providing here, but I try not to worry about it too much. The single best thing to do for average comment karma score (for whatever that's worth) appears to be to make consistently good comments.