Our first issue of COMPOST (compost.digital), a magazine about the digital commons, will be published in February 2021. The magazine is a pilot of Distributed Press (distributed.press), a larger project to build digital publishing infrastructure that is managed collectively and horizontally. COMPOST will be published to multiple DWeb and Web endpoints, including Hypercore and IPFS and incorporate experiments with web monetization.
The first issue will have around 12 pieces of digital art and writing, responding to the theme of Fertile Grounds. Contributors will explore how, as large swathes of the Web decay, how its remains can help new networks flourish. The pieces featured in COMPOST will be reflections on the projects, communities, technologies, protocols, and networks that enable authentic and trustful connections.
This will be an asynchronous session for people to read/experience COMPOST throughout the course of the conference.
We hope we can find more partners to join us in building the Distributed Press. We will also need to find more contributors for our second issue of COMPOST, and hope some Mozfest participants will be interested in submitting a pitch for that next issue.
How will you deal with varying numbers of participants in your session?:Not applicable, as this will be on view throughout the conference.
What is the goal and/or outcome of your session?:We’d like people to view our magazine, which will not only contain creative works about reclaiming digital infrastructure, but is building public digital infrastructure in the process. COMPOST will be an outcome of a collective design process that includes artists and writers exploring how they’d like to monetize their works on the World Wide Web and Decentralized Web.
The magazine will include a reflective piece that maps our process of developing this magazine, as well as its accompanying open source publishing tool, Distributed Press. We hope this will inspire others to experiment in building publications using collective decision making and open finances!
Mai is an organizer, writer, and social entrepreneur. She co-founded COMPOST magazine and Distributed Press. She is the Associate Producer of Decentralized Web Projects with the Internet Archive.