What about someone like Thoughtfix.... he has left the community, as evidenced by his lack of attendance here and his recent blog post about selling tabletblog.com. Should his relatively high karma maintain itself a year from now, say? Texrat makes a point about maintaining yourself in the community and therefore reaping any rewards (like karma) for doing so. I use Thoughtfix as an example because it illustrates in concrete terms what Texrat is saying. Nothing personal... his blog was helpful when he was around.