Community Points: Free $20 PSN Card Every Month (Update)

Today, we’ve decided to roll out our latest and permanent Community Interactive Feature for PlayStation University. I understand and appreciate our community thoroughly and I also recognize that without our faithful and loyal readers, we wouldn’t be growing at the rate we currently are. For that, I thank all of you.

However, with your daily visits and interaction with the website, it has helped create advertisement revenue due to the ads you see displayed on the front page as well as our forum (sign up here!). This revenue has been a huge help in aiding the sites increasing server costs (due to growth) as well as making it possible to purchase review copies of games and to give away things on the site.

For those of you who know me from a previous website or have grown to know me here, you probably know that I like giving back to the community as much as possible and whenever I can honestly afford to. I do my best to make things happen and today, it’s good to know that we can finally roll out a Community Points initiative that I’ve wanted to open up from Day 1.

Alright. If you scroll down the page and look below where the “Polls” section is on the sidebar, you’ll notice a new leader board that lists the “Top Users” of the community. The Top Users section has been removed, but everyone is still accumulating points on the website. At the end of every month, I will make the leader board public once more so people can see who the potential winners are . Currently, everyone should be at roughly 0 points. Users will be able to increase the point total by logging into your PlayStation University WordPress Account here (Sign up here if you haven’t) and by leaving a comment on an article (Spam comments will be deleted and you will LOSE points if this happens — please keep it appropriate).

Rules

  1. Users who go back 2+ months to spam old articles for free points will be disqualified from that month’s competition. This will be monitored closely.
  2. Comment discussion between users is acceptable, but keep it completely on-topic and relevant to the news post being commented on.
  3. Personal discussions will be deleted and subject to point deductions.
  4. The Top 8 Users of every month will be thrown into a hat and their names drawn to receive the $20 PSN Card.

At the end of each month, the Top 8 Users of the month will receive an email to the same email account they signed up with, congratulating and thanking them for their active contribution to the website and ONE will also receive a Code redeemable on the PlayStation Network to add $20 into your PSN Account Wallet. In order to redeem this code, you will need to create a North American account. However, this Monthly Prize is open to ALL readers from around the world.

Just to be fair, staff members will not be eligible for these prizes (Authors on the front page), however, moderators and subscribers to the forum will all be eligible as will regular members. As the site continues to grow, the denomination of the PSN card that can be won will increase as well. Hopefully in the coming months, as the site grows, we can change the parameters of the contest to three winners who will be awarded a $50, $20 and $20 PSN Code each month.

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If you guys have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below. We’d love to hear feedback on what you think of this initiative and if this is something that you think will increase your interactivity within our community. We care about our userbase and take all of your feedback to heart, so always feel free to express yourself in a constructive manner when leaving feedback for the site staff.

Thanks,

The Dean.

UPDATE: Guys, this initiative isn’t for you to abuse. Those found abusing this generosity by doing nothing but spamming all of the articles (even those 2-3 months old) will be disqualified for that month’s competition. This is set out to be fair and should remain such.

I’ve removed a massive amount of comments and have adjusted both Xero’s and Dr. Moogle’s scores. If you guys continue the ridiculousness of it all, you both will be disqualified from this month’s contest. I do not want our community turning into a spamfest. If we can’t do something like this appropriately, we just won’t do it at all.

Readers Comments (50)

  1. How does the points system work?

  2. If it wasn’t for people like you Dr. Moogle, people wouldn’t have to go out of there way to be in the running. 400 points already, come on, that has to be spamming, there is only 2 articles that use this feature. No way you had 30 some posts in the little bit of news that has happened.

  3. @Killah, when you post a comment you get 10 points. Simple as that.

  4. Some of Moogles posts were valid and actual on-top discussion that was thought out. I docked points for all of the spamming him and Xero did earlier (they were both over 1,000 points when I woke up this morning).

    Check the feedback section of the forum for a post I just made. Cheaters/Spammers will NOT prosper on this. They will be disqualified on a month-to-month basis.

    This initiative will involve a lot of “trial and error,” but we’ll get it to where we need to be as a community, together.

  5. but where do we check our own points

  6. Thanks for the update Dean. Did not know they had so many points. Maybe keep it a secret from people so no one even knows about it but still keep track of points yourself and not public and then randomly, come out and say there is a prize but after a certain time and use those points from before so it will be equal. That is at least my opinion on it. You can take off the 10 points from this post if you think it is off topic.

  7. I’ve removed the “Top Users” section. Points are still accumulating, but it’ll only be revealed at the end of the month as to who has how many points.

  8. thats good, but still there is no way to know our own points?

  9. Only way to reveal your own points to you, is to allow you to click on other users and see their points as well. If you’d like to know your point tally at the end of the month, it will be included in the final leader board.

  10. aw dean, you ruined the fun lol

  11. well sounds good to me, by the way great move to remove Leader board as it will keep all the user keep coming back and trying rather than just giving up hope.

  12. So do comments on articles like this count for points?

  13. ^^^^

    yep

  14. Damn something I said actually worked. Hell must have frozen over. LOL

    I think not having the leaderboard up will help some since people can’t just post to get to the top.

  15. Just so you’re aware Xero. You’re way back down to almost 0 points. If you’re going to continue to spam about, you’ll just be removed from this month entirely.

  16. @ the dean
    what? i was answering peoples questions D: what spam?

  17. I was going to say, the point counter shows the spammers 😉

  18. @ zach
    ya but i wasnt spamming. everything i posted pertained to the articles i was commenting on or answering questions people asked. spam? i say nay.

  19. Do you have any more plans for the community such as person of the month or just more give aways?

  20. @ Judge, if I was him, I would keep it a secret so people don’t start going overboard to be considered the best. It should be his call when he feels a member has done an outstanding job or whatever.

  21. This is pretty sweet for the community!

  22. Xero, we understand that the rules were perhaps not too clear beforehand and hoped common sense would prevail, but we’ve added some rules for you to check through. If you see it from our point of view, we want to promote positive interaction and grow our community, so its win win for everyone. Posting on age old articles with short comments doesn’t really positively affect the community and is pertaining to spamming. Don’t run away, you still have a chance if you stick to the rules!

  23. Just a quick mention of something I noticed:

    “Hopefully in the coming months, as the site grows, we can change the parameters of the contest to three winners who will be awarded a $50, $20 and $20 PSN Code each month.”

    Was it meant to be $50, $20 and $10? No one’s stopping you from giving out two $20 cards I’m sure but although they are rare, $10 PSN cards do exist out there!

  24. Do you get points posting in the forum or on thew articles?

  25. Great idea 😉

    @SnowHawk – Only on the front page articles.

  26. well i had a feeling something like this would happen because of me and xero lol

    well now that i’ve read this i shall abide by the rules….good luck everyone!

    and the hat drawing thing sounds nice….did you use that idea from me?

  27. Thanks Nick. =)

  28. good now atleast everyone will have a fair chance

  29. say just a quick question but it says that at the end of the month the drawing happens…well this started on the third week….so when is the first thingy happen?

    or are you just going to let this run til the end of next month?

  30. how old do you have to be to be able to win? how many users can you have per household?, could my be entered in as well as me hes 14

  31. sorry i was ment to say my son not my be. lol im not spamming i just correcting myself please dont count this message.

  32. meh. I’ll still be posting normally.

  33. Nice idea to reward the users but because the reward is in dollars can you still use it on the european store?

  34. @Scott.

    You’d have to create a US Store Account (really easy) and use the funds there (US Store usually gets things first too, so it’s much better that way).

  35. Ok thanks for the reply, I’ll try creating one when I get chance, never win the promotion anyway but still nice to have access to demos and other content earlier than I would.

  36. That is great I am sure all of us appreciate how much you give to your community. I like to come here for great reviews and some news not really for the prices but still that is very nice of you all.

  37. I signed up today as I have just heard about this and I think this is quite cool.

  38. why did you gys bring back the top users on the site? i think it was better when nobody knew (even though im glad im not too far from the top even with all my “spam” removed lol)

  39. Yea why did the Top Users come back. Made me anxious to know if I was near the top and if I had a chance of winning. Doing way, way better than I ever though.

  40. 30NIGHTCRAWLER30 February 27, 2010 @ 13:55

    a lot of spamming going man, seriously people lie Dr.Moogle have 30 posts on one.

  41. @30NIGHT,

    you aint lying. I am sticking in the lead but god damn it is tough. I post on every article because I have to say something about that article but I have to keep going back cause Moogle somehow blows by me again. Don’t see how it is physically possible.

  42. It is nice of you to give away a free PSN card each month. It will attract people to the site and you will get more visitor that frequent the site because of it.

  43. nice work

  44. @ Starspeed Wow dude how did you get 100 posts in like a few hours? Jesus if you want a psn card that bad, then i have to inform you that the top 5 users are put into a hat and randomly selected.

  45. @ The Dean you should have it so, the amount of points given to one user, is how long their posts are because someone like StarSpeed is just spamming nearly every article but at the same time “staying on topic”

  46. Yeah, starspeed has over 1000 points which is kind of shocking =P (I was in 4th place this afternoon, then went to 6th by night). As sonyjunkie said, it’s hard to be on the top 5 without breaking the rules so. let’s see how it goes.

    Anyway, it’s been a lot of fun to comment and participate; from halo, bungie and fanboys to guessing the next big game. I’ll be sure to be #1 next time xD

  47. Alright guys, in 2 hours, February’s content will end and all of the points will be rest. I’m going over the Top 5 users right now to check the history to make sure it is fairly earned. If someone is disqualified, I will then move to the 6th guy….

    I’ll post an article with the winner in it tomorrow.

  48. How do you check how many points you have? BTW Moocows111111 and Dreamer_Lion, i saw you guys spamming a lot of the topics with many posts if you want to call me a spammer.

  49. No no, there is a difference between a thoughtful comment and a spamming comment.

    But alas, The Dean takes care of that stuff xD

  50. My comments are well thought out and they are on topic. I have seen your post Dreamer_Lion and also Moocow111111, you both spam the recent topic ever since he announced he was giving away a PSN card. So don’t try to act like you are any different and better than someone else. You been spamming and you think people don’t notice, but you called me a spammer you hypocrite. The only reason I’m calling you a spammer now is because you try to call me out first.

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