Well, karma on the forum is historical. At one time you could give karma to others like thanks however more karma you had, the more karma your karma grant could give others, so a new member's karma grant was just a couple of points but a senior member's was huge. You could even donate karma. This was simply a function of the software. There was eventually a scandal suggesting that some members were deliberately inflating the karma of other members and then that option was removed. It now only accrues based on thanks and numbers of posts.