How do the people on the leaderboard get so many points?

Yes, thumbs up.

Richard, before he decided to work on his book, had very popular answers, so those are thumbs up points.

I have personally seen him get 80,000 and 53,000 points in a week, so a fan base is always to be cherished

First. Maybe he answer plenty of question each day cause lv.7 gives you an unlimited amount of chances to answering questions.

Second. Maybe he ask a very minimum amount of question cause asking question cost 5 pts. per questions.

Third. Maybe he's often picked as the best answer. Being chosen as best answer gives you additional 10 pts.

Maybe The 254000 pts. he recieved it at another day like today, yesterday, two days ago, etc.

Hope this help you, have a nice day bro.

You get points for voting for best answers for your own questions, as well as others. You also get 1 point per thumbs up your recieve up to 50 per answer. Chances are if he's answered 6,000+ questions, he's received a few thumbs up.

You also get points for voting for best answer, as well as for signing in.

haha...if u vote for best answers u get like three points or sumthing n we cant really tell how many times he's voted so...i guess u r missing something...lol :P

Perhaps he votes on unresolved questions. Boy - he can't have much else to do with his life.