This is a living document for all Brevity Quests. As such it may change from year to year, and may be amended as new questions arise.
Currently, Brevity Quest entries are capped at 300 words. However, the word count that you can add to your writeup header (Advanced Settings -> 'Writeup Headers' -> 'Show approximate word count of writeup') is not the official word count for the quest¹. E2 Word Counter is more accurate, but I have a prefrred method of tackling word count, which I have preferred for my own use for years =]
There are a number of exceptions regarding which words in your writeup will count towards the quest total. Words that do not count are:
- Text hidden in pipelinks
- Numbers in numbered lists
- References (but footnotes do count!)
- The Brevity Quest tag (e.g., 300 or Brevity Quest)
If I have a question as to whether a writeup qualifies for the quest, I will copy the displayed text (i.e., what is displayed when you post, rather than what you typed in the text box), into wc, remove any exempt words, and use that number as final –wp.
This writeup may be edited at any time by the Brevity Quest lead judge. For BQ2025, this is wertperch. Please contact me with any questions.
¹For example, the writing above says 253 words by E2's count, but 215 by
xclip -o |
wc|wc].