your clout should increase quickly (it goes up with time you've been a member, posts, and your own karma number, if memory serves), and it's the thought that counts more than the number ; a lot of us are really pleased to get tiny karma thwacks from newbies because it's a sign we helped someone out. but hopefully we can change the starting number to 2 at least. it's pretty pointless to have the default be 1, if the system won't accept that...
