Even if somehow that is "deserved", that's not a healthy ecosystem.
All that is left of SI are clueless questioners and bitter, jaded responders.
SO worked when "everyone" was new to it, and they felt energized to ask questions ( even "basic" questions, because they hadn't been asked before ), and felt energized to answer them.
SO solved a real problem - knowledge being locked into forum posts with no follow-up, or behind paywalls.
So, I reviewed the questions list again but this time, since the time I did view it about 9 hours ago [1]. 10 were negative scored, 5 positive scored, 15 0 scored, 4 has received answers. This is better than normal for those ~30. Usually it's 80% without votes, without answers, without comments. So, this is a significan improvement... which I suspect is due the time of the day, as the US and most of Europe were asleep.
So, yeah, actually this looks promising and a movement in the positive direction.
It is not "karma". It is not to be taken personally. It represents the objective usefulness of the question, not the personal worth of the person asking it.
Look at the newest questions: https://stackoverflow.com/questions?tab=Newest
Most questions have negative karma.
Even if somehow that is "deserved", that's not a healthy ecosystem.
All that is left of SI are clueless questioners and bitter, jaded responders.
SO worked when "everyone" was new to it, and they felt energized to ask questions ( even "basic" questions, because they hadn't been asked before ), and felt energized to answer them.
SO solved a real problem - knowledge being locked into forum posts with no follow-up, or behind paywalls.