melissa said:

If we are going to post incomplete books, the notice should not be just for 'our own people' but should be very clearly stated to the users of PG.

i agree. it should be noted right there in the e-text itself. which, in the sole example given, was precisely the case...

Anything less is deceit, in my mind.

well, "deceit" is a pretty strong word, with ugly implications. let's save that for where it applies, like with our government.

Such books should go in a section for incomplete projects, and the end-user's help should be specifically solicited, creating a partnership with him

i agree. and have said as much in the past, several times, not just for the specific case of incomplete projects, but for the larger arena of which it is a subset -- error-correction... i even offered to set up a user-based error-correction system, which is _desperately_ needed by this ever-growing e-library. my offer was rebuffed. but melissa, since you're on this kick today, how about if _you_ offer to set up such a system. maybe they'll accept your offer. one task you'd do is to scour the library for incomplete e-texts.

rather than putting him off by trying to pass off a 'broken' project as one in good condition.

i don't believe anyone was ever suggesting that we should try to "pass off" a "broken" e-text as if it were "one in good condition". i believe michael was suggesting exactly what you've suggested, namely that we involve the end-users to help solve the problem. after all, all of "our own people" are end-user volunteers, right? the "missing pages wiki" over at distributed proofreaders is a start, but since that's only known to people at d.p. (and only some of them), it is no more than a start. make it bigger, melissa. take it public... -bowerbird