The community forum provides, among other things, a space for discussions about individual projects. This allows users to share any notes about or issues with a particular work, which mitigates any disadvantages that might result from decentralising the task and pushing it out to a large number of volunteers. Users can also organise themselves into social teams, and this has had the added benefit of the creation of a number of teams dedicated to fulfilling particular tasks beyond general proofreading, from proofing indices to transcribing music.
	With this setup, Distributed Proofreaders easily fulfils its own aims, and contributes to the mission of its close partner and former parent, Project Gutenberg. 
Project Gutenberg’s often takes a somewhat plain approach to its website — many of its pages are utilitarian, with a minimum number of bells and whistles (the pages often define no fonts, leaving the browser to render the page in its default set, for example). This may increase compatibility with a range of devices, but can look unpolished. Users who are familiar with this aspect of Project Gutenberg will not be surprised by the look and feel of its partner: the website is perfectly navigable, but its simplicity extends into a dated-looking plainness. While some may wonder if the design has changed since the initiative’s conception in 2000, the website’s currency and credibility are immediately proven. Statistics on the front page display the total number of completed works, the total completed in the last month, and the total for the month so far. The front page also provides links to recently completed works on Project Gutenberg, which not only shows the currency and credibility of Distributed Proofreaders, but also demonstrates how its output is freely available to the public (and better yet, in a variety of DRM-free formats). 
	Once a user has signed up, getting involved is relatively easy. Users can jump into “smooth reading” right away, while the biggest roadblock for those who want to get involved in the actual proofreading is learning the proofreading guidelines. The primary rule – “don’t change what the author wrote!” – is simple enough, but beyond this, the guidelines are incredibly long and detailed, and very technical at points. Granted, precise guidelines that address every detail are necessary if the initiative is to fulfil its mission of accurately proofreading and formatting eBooks, but they’re an overwhelming document to confront new users with. There is also a helpful summary of the guidelines, which is much more succinct and readable. It is also presented in dual “as printed” and “as correctly proofread” form, which is a very helpful extended example of the proofreading format. Nonetheless, this must be stumbled across; it is the full guidelines that are recommended to users. 
	Projects on the website are clearly divided by their stage in the workflow. Works at each stage are labelled with their language and assigned a genre and a difficulty level, which allows users to quickly find something interesting to them and appropriate for their skill level. Some texts are marked “beginners only”; these function as a training activity for new users, who receive personal feedback after proofing them. Non-beginners do not receive personal feedback in the normal course of things, but they can request it in the community’s forums.
