Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7
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I was reading a few posts on another thread and I am slightly confused....
Is the Word Count Tool provided accurate?
I read where some say keep your work to 250 words and you'll be OK and another says 290 and you should be alright....Am I to take from this that the Counter is not completely pinpoint accurate?
Can someone clarify that point for me.
Thanks.......
No. People are saying that if your own word counter in your word processor is indicating you're really close to the word limit...i.e., 300 words or less for the purposes of Round One...then, you might want to purposefully scale your item design by setting an arbitrarily lower number as your cap. That way, you won't flirt with going over word count. Some have suggested 250. Some have suggested 290.
with my round 1 entry I found that using the format "Hot/Cold" counted as 1 word in MS word but did not in the Word Count Tool of the message board. The word count tool saw it as 3 words, i.e. Hot+/+Cold. That's the only thing Ive noticed.
Correct. Different word processors handle counting hyphens and slashes differently. Thus, that's the whole reason Paizo added a word counter to the Preview area of the submission tool. That way, you could check your "official" word count according to what the judges would be using to determine if you stayed under 300 words.
Oh no!
Am I to take from this that the Counter is not completely pinpoint accurate?
The counter is by definition accurate for the purposes of the contest, since it is what the judges use to determine if an entry is within the rules of the contest or not.
In a more general sense, no word counter is completely accurate. Computerized ones treat hyphens, slashes, weird punctuation and broken words differently, and therefore come up with slightly different results. Even two people counting the same document might treat those things differently (I'm not sure if there even is an accepted grammatical standard for counting words.) For that matter, humans are fallible and might simply miscount.
To use the earlier example in this thread, "Hot/Cold" is one word in MS Word, three in the contest word counter, and if I were to count it myself, I'd say it is two words. An English-language stickler might count it as three, though, because they see it as shorthand for "Hot or Cold" or "Hot and Cold".
It is because of these differences that we have to have an official count.
Dedicated Voter Season 6
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What’s kind of strange to me though, is that people would use enough slashes or hyphens to make that much of a difference. In my view (and I don’t know how Sean and company view it as they get material in for edit) is that a excess amount of slashes detracts from the clean and tight flow of text.
So if the problem lies in the use of hyphens and slashes, then try to use a minimum (none in my view for slashes) of them. In my view slashes are way clunky.
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Arrrr, me hearties. If only I could remember where I left me wooden leg. Not that I've lost a leg yet, Besmara be praised, or leastways not 'cepting the wooden one, but I always like to keep a wooden leg handy in case I should find myself in need of such a thing one day due to shark attacks. Or crocodiles (although I've heard as they like hands over legs). Or killer teapots. I once saw a man in the southern seas eaten alive by a killer teapot, and t'was not a pretty sight, I can tell you.
And a wooden leg is right handy for keeping the crew in order with, poking prisoners with who might have unknown electrical powers, or sitting upon whilst you watch another pirate lord bury a treasure chest from a safe distance with a spyglass.
Not that I'd be confessing to engaging in much of the latter business - I'm an out and out honest sea-dog, you see, and wouldn't dream of robbing a brother pirate for less than fifty thousand pieces of silver - but them smarmy 'privateers' with their 'letters of marque' is another matter altogether...
Hmm. I wonder if I left it in the taproom of 'The Iron Mermaid'. Now there be a thought.
<wanders off in search of wooden leg>
What’s kind of strange to me though, is that people would use enough slashes or hyphens to make that much of a difference. In my view (and I don’t know how Sean and company view it as they get material in for edit) is that a excess amount of slashes detracts from the clean and tight flow of text.
So if the problem lies in the use of hyphens and slashes, then try to use a minimum (none in my view for slashes) of them. In my view slashes are way clunky.
... up until the point where you have to refer to DR 5/magic and an effect that requires clairaudience/clairvoyance.... :)
Or blindness/deafness...
Arrrr, me hearties. If only I could remember where I left me wooden leg. Not that I've lost a leg yet, Besmara be praised, or leastways not 'cepting the wooden one, but I always like to keep a wooden leg handy in case I should find myself in need of such a thing one day due to shark attacks. Or crocodiles (although I've heard as they like hands over legs). Or killer teapots. I once saw a man in the southern seas eaten alive by a killer teapot, and t'was not a pretty sight, I can tell you.
And a wooden leg is right handy for keeping the crew in order with, poking prisoners with who might have unknown electrical powers, or sitting upon whilst you watch another pirate lord bury a treasure chest from a safe distance with a spyglass.
Not that I'd be confessing to engaging in much of the latter business - I'm an out and out honest sea-dog, you see, and wouldn't dream of robbing a brother pirate for less than fifty thousand pieces of silver - but them smarmy 'privateers' with their 'letters of marque' is another matter altogether...
Hmm. I wonder if I left it in the taproom of 'The Iron Mermaid'. Now there be a thought.
<wanders off in search of wooden leg>
I don't know what's worse, the fact that I heard a pirate accent while reading this or that I've got this scene stuck in my head now.
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Dedicated Voter Season 6
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... up until the point where you have to refer to DR 5/magic and an effect that requires clairaudience/clairvoyance.... :)What’s kind of strange to me though, is that people would use enough slashes or hyphens to make that much of a difference. In my view (and I don’t know how Sean and company view it as they get material in for edit) is that a excess amount of slashes detracts from the clean and tight flow of text.
So if the problem lies in the use of hyphens and slashes, then try to use a minimum (none in my view for slashes) of them. In my view slashes are way clunky.
That's twice in two days where your rules-fu was stronger than my rules-fu.
... up until the point where you have to refer to DR 5/magic and an effect that requires clairaudience/clairvoyance.... :)That's twice in two days where your rules-fu was stronger than my rules-fu.
You are in Rules combat with THE Sean K Reynolds... If his Rules-Fu DOESN'T exceed yours then you have ascended into divine status.
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Dedicated Voter Season 6
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... up until the point where you have to refer to DR 5/magic and an effect that requires clairaudience/clairvoyance.... :)That's twice in two days where your rules-fu was stronger than my rules-fu.You are in Rules combat with THE Sean K Reynolds... If his Rules-Fu DOESN'T exceed yours then you have ascended into divine status.
hehe... too true
That's twice in two days where your rules-fu was stronger than my rules-fu.You are in Rules combat with THE Sean K Reynolds... If his Rules-Fu DOESN'T exceed yours then you have ascended into divine status.
SKR is only a man, and as a man, he will one day grow old and his fu will ebb. But when the day finally comes that his Fu is not supreme, there will be none left willing to challenge him, and so he will take to his grave the title of rules Fu master... leaving all of his teachings to a scrappy kid that lacked discipline when (s)he first arrived at the door. And though most laughed at his/her unfinished handwave heavy technique, SKR saw beyond the unwashed youth at his doorstep, and in a parting gift to all humanity, trained a successor.