IQA Scores incorporated into Social Media
Die-hard followers of quidditch now have a brand-n...
Photo credit: Deanna Edmunds
For the past several weeks the Twitter project, run by Devin Sandon, has been operating independently. Now, though, Devin and his preexisting staff will operate under the guidance of Meaghan Prenda, the IQA's Social Media Manager, granting the IQA Scores staff greater outreach and the ability to best coordinate their efforts.
"The formal affiliation of the IQA Scores account with the IQA to me is very exciting," said Sandon. "[I]t demonstrates our ability as members of the community to see a void and fill it, as well as showing the IQA's ability to react to the dynamic nature of the quidditch community."
While tournament organizers tweeting results of their games is nothing new, the focus of IQA Scores is to monitor all the tournaments taking place in the league, and to post regular, standardized scores for each game. The format of Twitter particularly lends itself to this style of reporting, as a typical IQA Scores tweet will consist of the score of the game, along with an asterisk to denote the snitch catch and a hashtag to identify the event. Such a format allows followers to track the results of even a vast number of tournaments simultaneously.
"What I love about running and following [IQA Scores] is that you really get a chance to see the scope of quidditch," said Clare Hutchinson, another staffer on the project. "Just the number of teams competing every weekend is overwhelming."
Because the project is now functioning as an outlet of the IQA, its staffers will be able to coordinate with the IQA's other social media platforms to better keep its audience informed. Another volunteer, Matt Panico, expressed hope that the streamlined score reporting would allow followers greater ability to discovering trends in the data.
"Basically what we're doing is taking information from a variety of sources and creating one unified feed for the scores, all in the same format," he explained.
As the number and intensity of tournaments each increase in the lead-up to the World Cup this April, projects like IQA Scores will assuredly be of vital importance in allowing players to track their rivals, and allowing spectators to track their favorite teams. Dan Hanson, another staffer, himself relies on the feed when he's not collecting scores for it.
"When I got the tweet for UCLA 90, Texas 40 at WxSW, I jumped up at the lunch place I was at, screamed and pumped my fist in the air," he remenbered. "It's no different than how I follow my Boston sports teams while I live in LA. The media era of quidditch has begun!"
IQA SCORES VOLUNTEERS WANTED
Do you spend your weekends desperately texting your friends for the latest tournament results? Is the IQA Scores project something to which you're interested in contributing? If so, apply to join the IQA Scores team! Volunteers will work directly under project manager Devin Sandon on the IQA's Social Media Team.
Volunteers should expect to work roughly 8 hours per month. To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to noa.medford@internationalquidditch.org. Applications are due by 11:59PM EST on Friday, December 7th.
Responsibilities
- Tracking scores as reported on a variety of twitter accounts and tweeting them to the broader quidditch community.
Requirements
- Basic technological knowledge, or willingness to learn
- Good communication skills
- Reliability
- Initiative to inquire about missing results or conflicting results
- Professionalism
- Must be available some weekends (Applicants will not be expected to be available every, or even most weekends, necessarily, but if they are never available on weekends, they should not apply)
Useful Skills
- Understanding of tournament formats
