Journal: I'm a little bothered at the Karma system

I have read the FAQ on the Karma system, and so far, it doesn't seem to work the way they describe. I am really trying to be a good poster on here, but the Karma system seems to have killed that. The first modration of one of my comments was -1 Redundant because I posted an answer to a question someone asked, and by the time it got there, someone else had also posted the answer. The moderator just got to mine second, so they moderated it down. Come on, people, the FAQ said to focus on modding up good comments, rather than modding down.
As for the Karma system, the total mods I have received are Redundant, Insightful, Funny, Insightful. I know Funny doesn't affect Karma, but I have a -1 and two +1s, so how is my Karma still "Bad"??? For every -1, how many +1s does it take to climb back out of the hole? If there's more to it than simple addition of -1 and +1, then they need to mention that in the FAQ.