yeah word, I just added to your karma btw haha. I don't even know how it affects their rating, whenever I +karma someone I see no change. I feel like it should be a lot more user based, but it's not. A lot of notorious posters have pretty high karma, which I'm not saying is bad, but then a lot of people who I see helping out/ posting a lot have mid-40's karma.. even if I add to their karma.
I guess it only seems lame to me because 50 is the middle and other people as well as me are stuck below that, and I'm not sure why. With plenty of posts (okay.. not every single one is amazingly helpful but still..) and uploaded pictures/ reviews I don't see why it's not higher.
Anyway, this new addition of karma directly in the posts is definitely a nice improvement to the system, and hopefully a step in the right direction to more accurate ratings.