it punishes people for a lot of things:  for being nice to others and responding to unresponded-to inquiries, for participating in lengthy discussions that don't particularly keep the majority of people's interest, expressing an unpopular or contrarian opinion, etc..<p>why not simply implement a minimum karma score barrier past which your vote counts?  it would simply mean that you must contribute to the community before your vote has weight.  keeps newer people from flooding things immediately.  could even be a rolling barrier based on the average karma per user.