While it was completely unintentional, the system was sort of skewed to those who wrote USN or reviews. Aka magstaff reaped all the points. It was supposed to encourage user content. That's changed with the V8 tho
Activity, helpful comments, voting (when the game center is back), and like in any community: being friendly or funny without making yourself overbearing. Posting non eof threads that get lots of attention works too, like discussing topics that people Google and come to temp for answers about.