I think the best way to describe the karma thing is like a rating system. If you help people out and that kind of thing, they're likely to Exalt you (+1 Karma). If you piss someone off or anything like that, they might smite you instead (-1 karma). Each member gets 1 karma click per hour. Since you have -6, you either pissed 6 people off once, or maybe pissed one person off 6 times lol. It really doesn't have any effect on anything other than maybe you're self esteem if you're sensitive (j/k). Looking at karma can be a good indication of what others think of that member. Like storydude's karma lol, he's down to -89 or something all on his own