You've also been here for almost 4 years. So that would be nearly a year of being treated like a second class citizen. I agree with the parent that this would stifle participation by newer users.

The majority of it was from a tiny number of comments and submissions in a small amount of time.

This makes it even worse. You will never reach 1000 karma unless you are lucky to hit the karma lottery with a big post.

Someone like me will never bother. It might as well be 1,000,000.