At our online chats we will be holding multi-region word wars. At most of the regular chats, (Sundays, Thursdays and Saturdays) the word war will take place during the middle hour. Chat Room Here: www.crushedmuffin.com/Chat2.htm
At the other online events, word wars may take place as decided by the host region for the event. One of the MLs for the host region will be moderator / time-keeper for the word war. She will call “go” and “time,” at the prescribed time.
Participants in the war will write during that hour, and stop when time is called. In order to determine which words were written during the word war, we ask that you do one of the following:
1. open a new document for the word war, and use the word count feature there
2. write down the number of words you have before we start the war. Subtract that from your total word count at the end of the war to determine how many words you wrote
3. or write you words for the word war in a different color text, so you can easily highlight it and do a word count on your selection.
At the end of the word war, once you have your word count, you will need to report the number of words you wrote. Before the word war, an ML from each region (if available) will identify herself as the one to take your word count.
Report the number of words you wrote to your ML. She will tally all word counts, and come up with the average word count for the region (total number of words divided by participants in the region). Your ML will report the word count average to the hosting ML, and she will announce the winner of the word war.
If no ML is present from your region for the word war, the hosting ML can either ask for a volunteer from your region to gather and average the word counts, or take and do the math for multiple regions.
This is a honor system. Please report your words truthfully.
We recommend keeping an eye on the time yourself, and/or leaving your chat window open, at least a little, next to your document, so you know when the war ends.
In order to be fair to people in your region for average word count, you can’t participate if you join the word war and/or are not in the chatroom more than 15 minutes after the word war starts.
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-Christy
Co-ML for Gainesville, FL
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NaNo Participant: 2002-09
Nano Winner: 2002-03, 2005-08
NaNo ML: 2003, 2005-09
43,151 / 50,000
nov. 5, 2009 - 07 57
Thanks, Christy! =) Very helpful. I'm saving this thread on google docs, so we have it for next year too. Happy writing!
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Cheri in Peoria
2004-2008 winner
35,548 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 03 44
IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE ONLINE WRITE-INS:
*The hour-long word wars are how we're keeping track of the standings between the cities (since Fredericton doesn't have its own region, we can't just use NaNo site stats). If you find an hour-long word war is too long for you, why don't you join us at the beginning and use a timer to challenge yourself to write for 10-15 minutes, then take a 5-10 minute break, then write for 10-15 more minutes, etc, until the hour is up. The trick to hour-long word wars, I find, is to pace yourself - it's fine to take a break if you need to!
*Please arrive in the chatroom for a word war no later than 15 minutes after it's scheduled to start. This is to make it fair to the people who were there writing from the beginning, since a lower word count will drag our regional score down. We want to keep our score high! The final result is an average of all of our word counts (our total is divided by the number of people participating). If you arrive late, you are welcome to write with us, of course, but you will not be included in the regional totals for that event.
*You're welcome to use the chatroom outside of write-ins - it would be a good habit to check it when you have some time to write to see if anyone's there. Remember that the chatroom is a public forum and the conversations are saved, so please don't share any personal information there.
----Taken, with permission, from a regional message to Fredericton wrimos, but great advice for everyone!
Thanks Yolande for sharing this
-Christy
-----------Christy
Co-ML for Gainesville, FL
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NaNo Participant: 2002-09
Nano Winner: 2002-03, 2005-08
NaNo ML: 2003, 2005-09
50,862 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 08 16
You're welcome! :D
----------2006 - 100k
2007 - 60k
2008 - 68k