Okay, I’ve been looking around, and it seems that the way to get Karma is through posting good questions and answers, but I’m not allowed to post questions or answers until I have 15 Karma.
I hope there’s something I’m missing here. I have some great answers to post, but all I have been able to do is cram one of them into a comment…
Thanks in advance!
They’re trying something new to fight spammers. So now someone with enough karma has to review newb questions to make sure they aren’t spam. Anyway, sorry about this, not my idea. A single up-vote and you’re good to go. Ask away. And make it good 
And now another Catch-22: someone has complained at me for posting a partial answer as an Answer instead of a comment, but there is no comment feature visible to me, so I cannot respond to them. That’s why this very comment I am making (in this very paragraph) is an Answer – perhaps I am not Allowed to post comments. Or maybe the site is broken in Google Chrome. There’s just no way for a new user to tell. No indication that a feature is normally present but disabled. It’s all very frustrating! Honestly, I’d almost rather have the spam. The site’s UI is forcing me to Do It Wrong, and a new user is more likely to just assume that the site lacks the features that are hidden, and give up.
The problem is not Google Chrome. I use Chrome and, of course, I can post comments. I am new to the system (started today).
– You