Some high karma people are there
because they trigger controversy. mattmaroon comes to mind. And I don't know if I count as a high-karma user but I'm on the leaderboard, and I think that most of my karma comes
only from controversial discussions.
So far, I've seen very few HN users who have high karma because they're gaming the system. We're too small to have high karma matter much, so a lot of people just try their damndest to contribute to the community - and in a community of thinkers and designers, that usually means speaking your mind rather than conforming.
