Editing Project Gutenberg (section)

==Criticism==
{{update|section|date=December 2019}}
The text files use the format of [[plain text]] encoded in [[UTF-8]] and are typically wrapped at 65–70 characters, with paragraphs separated by a double line break. In recent decades, the resulting appearance and the lack of a markup possibility have often been perceived as bland and as a drawback of this format.<ref>{{cite web|last=Boumphrey |first=Frank|date=July 2000|url=http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue1/gutenberg/|title=European Literature and Project Gutenberg|publisher=Cultivate Interactive|access-date=15 August 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070714145517/http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue1/gutenberg/|archive-date=14 July 2007}}</ref> Project Gutenberg attempts to address this by making many texts available in HTML, ePub, and PDF versions as well. HTML versions of older texts are autogenerated versions. Another not-for-profit project, [[Standard Ebooks]], aims to address these issues with its collection of public domain titles that are formatted and styled. It corrects issues related to design and typography.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lifehacker.com/standard-ebooks-is-a-gutenberg-project-you-ll-actually-1796273390|publisher=LifeHacker.com|title=Standard eBooks is a Gutenberg Project You'll Actually Use|author=Partick Lucas Austin|date=20 June 2017|access-date=20 October 2020}}</ref>

In December 1994, Project Gutenberg was criticized by the [[Text Encoding Initiative]] for failing to include documentation or discussion of the decisions unavoidable in preparing a text, or in some cases, not documenting which of several (conflicting) versions of a text has been the one digitized.<ref>[[Michael Sperberg-McQueen]], "Textual Criticism and the Text Encoding Initiative", 1994, {{cite web|url=http://xml.coverpages.org/sperb-mla94.html|title=Textual Criticism and the Text Encoding Initiative|access-date=28 July 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304112335/http://xml.coverpages.org/sperb-mla94.html|archive-date=4 March 2016}}, retrieved 25 July 2015.</ref>

The selection of works (and editions) available has been determined by popularity, ease of scanning, being out of copyright, and other factors; this would be difficult to avoid in any crowd-sourced project.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Sebastian|last=Hoffmann|year=2005|title=Grammaticalization And English Complex Prepositions: A Corpus-based Study|edition=1st|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-36049-8|oclc=156424479}}</ref>

In March 2004, an initiative was begun by Michael Hart and John S. Guagliardo<ref>Executive director of the World eBook Library.</ref> to provide low-cost intellectual properties. The initial name for this project was ''Project Gutenberg 2'' (PG II), which created controversy among PG volunteers because of the re-use of the project's trademarked name for a commercial venture.<ref name="it21">{{Cite journal|last=Hane|first=Paula|title=Project Gutenberg Progresses|journal=Information Today|year=2004|volume=21|issue=5|url=http://www.infotoday.com/it/may04/hane1.shtml|access-date=20 August 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930184648/http://www.infotoday.com/it/may04/hane1.shtml|archive-date=30 September 2007 }}</ref>