[gloob]

Philosophically, I largely agree with you. The problem is raised by the fact that karma is largely a measure for "how long have you been on HN?" rather than anything that a sane person would like to base their opinion on. This is most clearly evident in your example with tptacek; could you tell me how you would go about determining his aptitude in the security field by looking at his karma score?

[sofal]

Oh I absolutely agree. Karma is definitely little more than an odometer and not useful for reputation purposes at all outside of an individual comment, and even then it doesn't say a whole lot.