fix the word count | World Anvil

fix the word count


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fix the word count

Feature Upgrade · Articles & templates · Created by Creon Crown
closed
word-count writing articles

What is unsatisfying with the current situation?

At the moment the word count also includes formatting and links, which does not provide a reliable method of tracking your actual wordcount. For example: If I put one word between the headline brackets without a space between, it is counted as 3 seperate words, although I have only really written one (

text

). Also, when I link another article, the link alone (this part here: (species:15902842-6609-48ee-987a-c88c3e773fb7) ) is counted as 8 seperate words but really is worth none.  

How does this feature request address the current situation?

As shown in the examples, the current word count is just not accurate at all and not a good source of tracking your writing. Especially with Nanowrimo around the corner, there should be a fix to this, since you can not use the word count as a reliable measurement. And I really wonder, why there is a wordcount at all, if it's not acurate.  

How to make it better?

I am aware that this is a known issue and there are some concerns on how to remove BBCode from the word count without making it again more unreliable for people who use [ ] for other things too. One solution I would suggest is that it takes spaces between words as an indicator. This wouldn't solve the problem completely, but it would make it way more accurate, by making the examples I provided above into only one word instead of 3 or even 8 with the link. In some cases, this is then accurate (eg. with the headlines) while in others it would still be a word of, but only one and not multiple.

The Team's Response

The WORLD count and MANUSCRIPTS count are two completely different systems.
  • The Manuscripts count which, most commonly is used by writers is accurate because there are no special formatting or other tags applied
  • The WORLD count does include the tags and that can change in the future if there is significant support from the community.
    • The World count is meant to be a general measurement of the work being done on a world. In general for a normal user tags are less than 3% of their total word count and for power users this is raised to about 5-6%. Both numbers are extremely low since in the worst case scenario the word count is 94% accurate in terms of tracking work progress.
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    Current score

    119/300 Votes · +19390 points

    Votes Cast

    • +50

      by morganjo
      on 2021-10-22 23:33

    • +300

      by wolfoflight2003
      on 2021-10-22 21:20

    • +100

      by Redow
      on 2021-10-22 16:38

    • +100

      by generalkros
      on 2021-10-22 16:24

    • +100

      by Drake Ragon
      on 2021-10-22 10:14
      This has been a pain while worldember or summercamp too. As of new I use the preview mode, copy all the text, check it in another program and be done with it, but I wonder if there would be a way to get it more accurate.   Maybe the word counter could check the "page in preview mode" in the background? The technical side could be tricky because I think that every single connected string is count as a word regarding of its content and separated by spaces and most likely others as "-".   But in general, yes making it more accurate would be awesome.

    • +50

      by NotLikeYouThink
      on 2021-10-22 09:36

    • +300

      by Huldrekarl
      on 2021-10-21 22:40

    • +300

      by Anima0Libera
      on 2021-10-21 21:16

    • +20

      by da476
      on 2021-10-21 15:52

    • +100

      by kaibrightwing
      on 2021-10-21 12:25

    • +300

      by Nameseeker
      on 2021-10-21 11:28

    • +300

      by Jester%
      on 2021-10-21 03:30

    • +20

      by LevVonLion
      on 2021-10-20 07:16

    • +300

      by Toncoroc
      on 2021-10-19 21:35

    • +50

      by Davekachel
      on 2021-10-19 20:53

    • +10

      by SakulBadger
      on 2021-10-19 18:19

    • +300

      by Sai_
      on 2021-10-19 14:55

    • +300

      by Quayy
      on 2021-10-18 12:31

    • +200

      by Deora Kyle
      on 2021-10-18 00:11

    • +300

      by maeoreth
      on 2021-10-17 18:05

    • +100

      by A Roaring Goblin
      on 2021-10-17 11:00

    • +50

      by aidanbird
      on 2021-10-17 06:25

    • +300

      by deehota
      on 2021-10-17 04:45

    • +300

      by HaberkampClan
      on 2021-10-17 01:40

    • +100

      by Rayna Fairbell
      on 2021-10-16 15:59

    • +10

      by Damparo
      on 2021-10-16 15:17

    • +50

      by Lenosallose
      on 2021-10-16 06:37

    • +300

      by Tarvera
      on 2021-10-15 23:05
      I agree, the word count as it currently is one of the reasons I haven't switched over to using world anvil for my actual writing and just using it for worldbuilding.

    • +300

      by Shikya
      on 2021-10-15 16:46

    • +200

      by Lextreme
      on 2021-10-15 08:39

    • +100

      by Sh4d0wPh03n1x
      on 2021-10-15 08:29

    • +200

      by imly2k
      on 2021-10-15 07:12

    • +100

      by Amancham
      on 2021-10-15 05:43
      Yeah ... this got me at summer camp before I realized that the word count is not accurate. I also would prefer if it didn't count the notes that you can make in the scrapbook because they don't show up anywhere. And I'm pretty sure they wouldn't count towards the word count for an article in challenges, either.   Also if you throw down a few notes in the scrapbook and maybe a sentence or two in the article itself, it doesn't count as a stub anymore, because your bullet points in the scrapbook make up more than 50 words already. So yeah. I would love for the wordcounter to get a bit of an overhaul.

    • +100

      by ShadowWalker368
      on 2021-10-14 19:51

    • +10

      by ka_jan
      on 2021-10-14 08:46

    • +300

      by TheTsar
      on 2021-10-14 07:50

    • +20

      by A.J.Ponder
      on 2021-10-14 02:56

    • +10

      by cedes
      on 2021-10-14 01:43

    • +300

      by Voxol Tetra
      on 2021-10-14 01:12

    • +200

      by Everwild
      on 2021-10-13 20:20

    • +50

      by johanfk
      on 2021-10-13 17:13

    • +300

      by Rieliesza
      on 2021-10-13 15:08

    • +200

      by Loremaster Aemon
      on 2021-10-13 12:24

    • +300

      by EleKTriiK
      on 2021-10-13 12:04

    • +300

      by Nightone
      on 2021-10-13 08:28

    • +10

      by Jetsem
      on 2021-10-13 05:06

    • +300

      by Mekel Lane
      on 2021-10-13 04:27

    • +200

      by soaptoaster
      on 2021-10-12 21:30
      I agree that it'd be nice to have an accurate word count when so many of WA's events (Summer Camp, WorldEmber, and so many other challenges) have word count minimums. I think the original poster is right that perhaps basing word count around spaces could be a fix (or at least an improvement) for this?

    • +200

      by Matthew Scott Miller
      on 2021-10-12 07:37

    • +100

      by TheFailicus
      on 2021-10-11 19:20

    • +20

      by Millie0wn
      on 2021-10-11 17:07

    • +10

      by Windblossom
      on 2021-10-10 22:26

    • +300

      by michaelthominks
      on 2021-10-10 15:17

    • +300

      by Bandoro
      on 2021-10-10 14:04

    • +20

      by Vantaj
      on 2021-10-10 13:24

    • +10

      by Mr.bacon227
      on 2021-10-09 21:34

    • +50

      by timetunnel
      on 2021-10-09 21:20

    • +300

      by GregariousTree
      on 2021-10-09 17:39

    • +20

      by ew_writing
      on 2021-10-09 11:48

    • +100

      by DMFW
      on 2021-10-09 11:11
      I had noticed this myself and although not absolutely critical for me because I edit long pieces of text outside World Anvil, I'd be more inclined to use World Anvil as my primary editor if this was fixed.

    • +300

      by DMJojo
      on 2021-10-08 19:31

    • +10

      by after_xero
      on 2021-10-08 17:53

    • +300

      by namako
      on 2021-10-08 13:28

    • +300

      by wolfregis
      on 2021-10-08 13:01

    • +100

      by Starsavior
      on 2021-10-08 08:52

    • +300

      by DiscardedStatue
      on 2021-10-08 08:40

    • +300

      by LamiiaSuu
      on 2021-10-08 08:34

    • +300

      by valhaia
      on 2021-10-08 07:42

    • +50

      by ArcanistD&D
      on 2021-10-08 07:37

    • +200

      by Snake__Venom
      on 2021-10-08 06:57

    • +300

      by lawsofgodsandmen
      on 2021-10-08 02:24

    • +10

      by Acai
      on 2021-10-07 23:38

    • +300

      by ReachingForStardust
      on 2021-10-07 21:18

    • +200

      by scholarmage
      on 2021-10-07 17:01

    • +200

      by eroki
      on 2021-10-07 09:38

    • +300

      by Bubbfisch
      on 2021-10-07 08:50

    • +50

      by Prophetx05
      on 2021-10-07 08:00

    • +300

      by CraniumBeaver
      on 2021-10-07 07:07

    • +300

      by cow2face
      on 2021-10-07 05:31

    • +200

      by Dregorin
      on 2021-10-07 02:11

    • +300

      by Magdelas
      on 2021-10-07 02:10

    • +300

      by Tallaks
      on 2021-10-07 00:51

    • +100

      by YikosCastle
      on 2021-10-07 00:42

    • +100

      by CandyH2O
      on 2021-10-07 00:19

    • +300

      by NathaliaBooks1993
      on 2021-10-06 15:24

    • +300

      by UnfairRaven
      on 2021-10-06 08:05

    • +300

      by Aquilus_Decimus
      on 2021-10-06 07:33

    • +100

      by Jacob-W
      on 2021-10-06 07:10

    • +300

      by MatGun86
      on 2021-10-06 06:48

    • +20

      by obtuseyeti
      on 2021-10-06 04:39

    • +200

      by Sicariouse
      on 2021-10-06 01:23

    • +300

      by Pointblank723
      on 2021-10-05 20:19

    • +20

      by Kuurakeinen
      on 2021-10-05 19:08

    • +50

      by Timetmannetje
      on 2021-10-05 17:24

    • +50

      by njbrig89
      on 2021-10-05 14:20

    • +300

      by Barbarossa Sparklebeard
      on 2021-10-05 13:05

    • +300

      by Osamco
      on 2021-10-05 11:37

    • +10

      by FizzyBee
      on 2021-10-05 11:04

    • +300

      by Silviooooooo
      on 2021-10-05 10:13
      Very good idea. Also, please add a character count, as it is the standard in European edition (at least in France). Thanks !

    • +50

      by BCGR_Wurth
      on 2021-10-05 06:56

    • +50

      by CristalViper
      on 2021-10-05 06:00

    • +50

      by guvatara
      on 2021-10-05 05:38

    • +10

      by InCeruleanInk
      on 2021-10-05 02:15

    • +20

      by Tirnel
      on 2021-10-04 23:48

    • +300

      by Melendor
      on 2021-10-04 17:24

    • +300

      by FenDawnchild
      on 2021-10-04 14:15

    • +50

      by FictionFan1995
      on 2021-10-04 13:35

    • +20

      by Adcheryl
      on 2021-10-04 13:16

    • +50

      by Goddess_Of_Luck
      on 2021-10-04 11:06
      Maybe there could be different counting methods for the user to choose from?

    • +50

      by Autumn Fae
      on 2021-10-04 10:08

    • +300

      by Menalena
      on 2021-10-04 09:59

    • +50

      by AuraGuard
      on 2021-10-04 06:53

    • -300

      by A Glamorous Velociraptor
      on 2021-10-04 05:11

    • +300

      by tjmichaels
      on 2021-10-04 05:04
      The inaccurate word count is the reason I went back to Scriviner for my manuscript though I would rather use World Anvil. For example, at the beginning of a writing session, the word count was 16 (which was odd because I had several chapters written). I went on to write about a thousand words, but the word count didn't update. The next time I logged in the word count looked closer to what I expected (about 16,000 words), but this time I copy/pasted a new chapter from Word. Again, the word count didn't update correctly.

    • +10

      by AntimatterNuke
      on 2021-10-04 01:47

    • +100

      by amelianite
      on 2021-10-04 00:42

    • +10

      by Michael Chandra
      on 2021-10-03 21:34

    • +10

      by skairunner
      on 2021-10-03 21:20

    • +50

      by Recon5116
      on 2021-10-03 20:36

    • +300

      by Creon Crown
      on 2021-10-03 14:05

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