In my case karma has the opposite effect on commenting. In fear of getting down voted I tend to avoid making comments. In reality this is just my fear of failure/getting rejected manifestating, but unless my eagerness/curiosity/certainty threshold is high enough I avoid the risk altogether.

The problem is that until I get over this exact sentiment/mindset I will just keep enriching my personal collection of thoughts or proof of concept applications and never, really, release anything. Sigh

On the other hand, I did not create an account on HN as a means to popularity, and since getting a new one is so easy I shouldn't care, but alas I do.