[Nick_C]

A late reply for anyone still reading...

I've been here for far longer than you and I'm still stuck in the 300 karma range. Why? Because of my timezone. Most people are asleep when I'm awake.

It is virtually impossible for me to submit an article and have it viewed by a large number of people before it is pushed off the front page. So all my submissions get low score, only for the same article to be submitted later in the day once NY and LA have woken up and get big karma scores for someone else. I've given up submitting, which is how you accumulate the big karma scores.