"The Word Count Validator is functioning in low-key test mode until November 25, at which point it will become the Mighty Portal to Official NaNoWriMo Victory": okay, I get this bit.
"To try it out now, paste your entire manuscript in the box and click submit at the bottom of the page": My entire manuscript? Surely, I won't have written it, ie finished it, until the end of November?
"Our robots will count it for you and update the word count on your author profile. Your draft will not show up on our website and will be deleted after it is counted". What? Deleted after it's counted? So you have no record that I've written anything?
"You can also scramble your manuscript before uploading it. See our scrambling FAQ for tips". Eh? If the manuscript is not shown on the website, meaning nobody knows it's there, why would I want to scramble it?
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Nov 1, 2009 - 15 36
No, you won't be done. You're copying in what you have at whatever point in time you decide to do it. This allows you to try it out and make sure you understand how to do the copy/paste (some people have some trouble with this). It also allows you to know in advance if your word processor is counting words the same way as our robots do. For example, some word processors count hyphenated words (twenty-six, for example) as two words. This is wrong. The robots know this is wrong and count it as one word. But if you use a lot of hyphenated words, the difference could be high. Similarly, if you do not use punctuation properly, there could be discrepancies, too. (for example, if you don't put a space after a comma or after an elipsis ("I had a toy,a candle,and a chicken"), some word processors will count my example phrase as 9 words, some will count it as 7 words -- the robots would count it as 7 words.
You write locally on your own computer, in your own word processor. The box on your profile is solely for copying and pasting the text of your manuscript for the purpose of counting the words. The illiterate robots will gleefully count the words you paste in and then immediately blank out the box, forgetting every word you put into it and everything about the plot, world and characters except for the glorious number of words. So, no record of your work will be saved on the NaNoWriMo site except for the word count. But since you wrote it locally and saved it (and backed it up), you have it, safely, in your control.
"You can also scramble your manuscript before uploading it. See our scrambling FAQ for tips". Eh? If the manuscript is not shown on the website, meaning nobody knows it's there, why would I want to scramble it?
Some people worry that someone else is monitoring the wire between their house and NaNoWriMo's word counting robots and will copy and steal the text of the manuscript. Some people worry that the word counting robots are really literate robots who will gleefully read, steal and/or make fun of your manuscript by making a whole bunch of copies of it for internet distribution. So, to thwart these anecdotal-manuscript-stealing robots and the nefarious internet stealers you can scramble the novel. This makes it so that whatever they steal is just gibberish (I don't have to scramble MY novel for them to get just gibberish).
Does this help clarify your questions?
----------NaNo 2006(win): "Children of the Stars"
NaNo 2007(win): "Darkness Falls"
NaNo 2008(win): "Dark Storm Rising"
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Nov 1, 2009 - 15 49
Your entire unfinished manuscript, i.e. everything you've written so far. It will be counted and you can compare the word count of the validator to the word count of your word processor.
No other record than the updated word count. This is based on trust ...
So don't send the only manuscript you've got - only send a copy.
Some people are worried that robots etc. might be "listening in" while you're sending it. Technically it is possible. The risk isn't very great, though.
Edit:
----------And while I was writing my answer, so was the moderator ;-)