I can only address the word count thing: we've always had the option for participants to set their own word counts. 20k, 100k, whatever. 50k doesn't even constitute a novel, in my book (pun intended). Others may disagree. I think it was always meant as a starting point, subject to later revision/expansion. I kind of like the idea of 60k, because a) that's the more accepted minimum length for a "novel," and b) it's nicely divisible by the 30 days of November, yielding a 2000-words-per-day average goal instead of 1666.666... But then, I'm a bit of a math nerd, and I write fast and have plenty of what you might call spare time.

All these things you mention are valuable to think about and discuss (in other words, I don't think you're interrupting or interfering, but asking important questions), though I don't have answers, myself. My involvement here has mostly been tech support for our various forms and spreadsheets, and weekly contest judging coordinator, but those roles haven't been determined for this year, either.

Okay, I lied. One other thing: the idea of allowing more writing after the goal is reached is kind of a nonissue for me (again, others may disagree) because it's your work, not anyone else's, and if an overachiever finishes on November 10 or 15 or whatever, and wants to keep writing or start editing before the end of the month, who are we to stop them? Right now, the focus of this forum is preparation and encouragement, not dictating what people do in November. Should that change? I don't know.

I do feel like this is an opportunity to draw more people into WDC, but I'm curious what staff would think of that.