If you want to assume that all words are seperated by a space you can use a function like

Function fCountWords(strIn As String) As Integer      Dim varWords As Variant      If InStr(strIn, " ") > 0 Then         varWords = Split(strIn, " ")         fCountWords = UBound(varWords) - LBound(varWords) + 1      Else         fCountWords = 1      End If End Function

in your database (use it in db and not in asp so you don't have to pull all records down)
If you want to be sure to catch double spaces etc. (still not 100% because of Forum Codes a VBA function like

Function WordCount(str As String) As Long Dim c As String  ' Character to examine Dim i As Long  ' index into string Dim nw As Long  ' number of words counted Dim inword As Boolean ' indicates c is in a word or outside a word i = 1 Do While i <= Len(str) c = mid$(str, i, 1) If (c = Chr$(32) OR c = Chr$(9)) Then ' c is a "white character" (a non-word character) ' Add other characters if you like:  NL chr(10), CR chr(13), etc.   inword = False ElseIf Not inword then   inword = True   nw = nw + 1 End If i = i + 1 Loop WordCount = nw End Function

may work for you.

Well I don't know why you need that and it sure will cause a lot of overhead depending on the size of your forum but you can use both as a vba function and return the value to an asp page.