Lemon,

No intro, just get straight into the real rap!

IQ (Like you didn’t invent it)

Rap Genius and the entire Genius movement of websites use the resource IQ to reward its users for providing content to the site. It’s a brilliant way to use an intangible resource to motivate users to create content, to make RG a self-watering plant of users creating content for free!In order to improve Rap Genius we need to make the most of IQ and other intangible resources and the way we award it.

The Playground Theory

Increasing the level of competition and fun will inevitably increase output and quality of work. Start keeping track of everything.

Achievements: More Intangibles

It’s not IQ (although Achievements could come with a certain amount of IQ when they are awarded) but they are free to give out and would give users a sense of pride when they get certain hard to reach Achievements. You could give achievements for hitting 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 IQ on the weekly leaderboards. And upgrade the achievement as the user does more.For example: I hit 250 IQ for the week on News Genius. I am awarded the Weekly Iron Medal (It could be named something cooler) then when I hit 500 IQ I receive the Weekly Bronze in place of Iron.These achievements could be viewable on a user’s profile and would definitely do a lot to motivate users to create content. Another key point of using a system like this is that it gives the higher ups the ability to target specific areas of the site and make awards available for completing the tasks associated.For example: If we see that Poetry Genius is lacking in Maya Angelou literature. We could give achievements for transcribing and annotating work by Maya. There could be an additional tab on the homepage called missions, that could be set up by moderators which list different tasks that need completion on the site and award Achievements and possibly bonus IQ for completing the content that the site needs. This would make RG a much more competitive and fun environment for its users.The cool thing about Achievements on Rap Genius is that once one was achieved; there is a chance that some medals may never get given out again, because the content will be filled and the mission completed. Another cool thing is that they cost nothing (maybe a little programming time) to make and we can always continue to make different ones for each season of play.

Make the Leaderboards Matter

Leaderboards are a great way to encourage people to contribute greatly to the site. However currently there is not too much incentive to top leaderboards besides chat room bragging rights. If we used Achievements and Bonus IQ to reward the leaderboard holders it would motivate them to maintain their positions.I have an idea for the leaderboards. You can make it so that if you get a leaderboard spot, somewhere in the top 10, you get Bonus IQ for annotations, transcriptions and edits added to your IQ values on your profile. However to prevent the rich from getting richer, this Bonus IQ would only count for the user’s total IQ value for the given category. It would not contribute to leaderboard position. This way the leaderboard positions are always up for grabs and require a lot of work to maintain.

Motivation is key!

Cosigns

Verified authors are an important part of the rap genius community. They add value by their presence alone. Cosigns are honors that verified authors get (once they hit over 1000 IQ the number isn’t important but the ability should be an unlockable)A cosign is an honor bestowed by a Verified Account that gives the recipient an award that can be placed on the person’s profile and gives a bonus amount of IQ based on the Verified Account holder’s IQ rating and the recipient’s IQ rating. You can play with the math of the award IQ to fit whatever aim you have.Or on the other hand perhaps reward IQ isn’t necessary. Maybe the cosign itself should be enough for whatever editor receives it. Imagine GZA being able to cosign a fan’s breakdown of his amazing lyrics. It would probably mean the world to the fan who wrote it.

Editor’s Reward

There has to be a way to reward editors for doing their job, editing. Currently editing an annotation earns you a percentage of the author credits but no IQ. This should be changed based on the number of characters changed in the original annotation. At first glance it may appear that this opens the door for exploiters to pimp the system by editing a whole lot. The system, however will not be pimped.Editing rewards can be given by setting up a requisite amount of change that must be satisfied to trigger the IQ reward. So if the threshold is 50 characters changed, an edit that only changes 35 characters would not be rewarded. This protects the system from being pimped and encourages editing and making posts better. There are many annotations that have been accepted as accurate but are not very detailed. Rewarding editors for fleshing out the wimpy annotations would increase motivation for editors and encourage higher quality annotations.

Refer a Friend

A classic marketing technique of referring your friends to the site for bonus IQ. In the case of Poetry Genius this would be especially useful. We could use the same technique that all refer-a-friend programs do.Example: PerfectRhyme refers me to PG. Once I hit 200 total IQ (across all branches), Perf gets 100 IQ. It would be a good way for people to get rewarded for bringing on new users who are producing for the site.These are just examples of how it could work to make the RG experience that much more fun to recruit for.There could be an Achievement (see above) for referring certain amounts of friends: 1, 5, 10, 20, etc., which could also award bonus IQ.

More Organized Forums

As it stands right now the forums are just a sandbox for all kinds of discussion from the last episode of Breaking Bad, to lyrical analysis of Lupe Fiasco’s early career.If there were more defined discussion rooms within the forums, users would know exactly where to go to talk about whatever they wanted. This may not be a pressing issue at the moment because the forums are not insanely popular right now, but I think that more organization in the forums would be good for the user experience.

Upvote Post Protection

Currently if you are an editor, you can edit or delete any annotation in the Rap Genius datasphere. Upvotes are a good way to see which posts are well done and informative. Those posts are valuable and should not be tampered with. You guys probably already have some sort of a system in place to catch rogue editors who vandalize or delete good annotations just for the fun of it.But if you don’t, here’s how I’d imagine it. If a post gets a certain amount of upvotes it becomes protected. A protected post can still be edited by an editor but would have to go through a moderator for final approval. This way we have at least some protection from losing our best annotations to egotistical editors and virulent vandals.

Miscellaneous Cool Stuff

Rewards are the key to creating friendly competition and motivated writers. Writing respected, complete and revered annotations for Rap Genius should be something a writer could put on his resume one day.There is so much potential here to create a new kind of media consumption based on deep reading and analysis. There is potential to create a new reading and writing community. One that is fun, nurturing, and rewarding for its readers, editors, moderators and ultimately anyone who comes in contact with Rap Genius.This is what Rap Genius already does without many people realizing. It disguises the hamster wheel.It makes reading more interesting, thus making people read more and more deeply simultaneously. If we can create the same experience for writers and editors there would be a HUGE increase in not only content creation but content quality control and competition. Rap Genius is a movement, lets get it moving!I’m down to help RG in any way I can. This is a site that truly has something special, more people need to understand that so that the site can become more powerful of a tool for music appreciation, education and deep reading. The more people we convert from lurking to working the better we’ll be for it!Holla at me, son!

Stepper