Gut feeling says it does have an impact. I recall reading that reddit takes into account how long a user has been registered.
The karma system is pretty interesting... there are definitely many variables to play with in calculating "karma," but the end goal should be largely the same -- measure a user's contribution to a community and also how trustworthy the user.
While I am not familiar with current systems, it does look possible to accumulate the same number of karma points by say, submitting a few very popular articles, or by submitting many less-popular articles. So are these two users treated equally when their scores are the same? If yes, then the system is ignoring some valuable information! If no, then karma becomes a rather meaningless measure.
The karma system is pretty interesting... there are definitely many variables to play with in calculating "karma," but the end goal should be largely the same -- measure a user's contribution to a community and also how trustworthy the user.
While I am not familiar with current systems, it does look possible to accumulate the same number of karma points by say, submitting a few very popular articles, or by submitting many less-popular articles. So are these two users treated equally when their scores are the same? If yes, then the system is ignoring some valuable information! If no, then karma becomes a rather meaningless measure.