COMPOST @compost@social.coop

ISSUE 01: Fertile Grounds has arrived! Our first issue contains eight creative pieces and a series of kaoani inspired animated GIFs. You can read it on the World Wide Web here >> https://one.compost.digital/

"a game of chance that alters the ways you sense, make, and navigate public space."

Directions to Nowhere in Particular is part art project, part urban exploration, part internet challenge. Newly launched from The Bentway, From Later & Nomadic Labs.

wander outside + follow the prompts at http://directionstonowhere.com

Other free software we use include Passbolt for password management & Hugo (gohugo.io) and Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/) for static website publishing.

And of course Mastodon and social.coop for social media'ing. 😁

These are just the tip of the iceberg! We hope this inspires other free software projects to back their stacks to build better infrastructure together. ✌️

We use Element by @matrix hosted by Toronto Mesh for day-to-day communications among editors and contributors. Check it out as a secure, decentralized + interoperable alternative to Slack >> matrix.org

Our newsletter uses GNU Mailman hosted at Hypha.coop It’s old school but it’s solid and it works. https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=22

So we're *backing our stack* today, naming and contributing to some of the free software that makes COMPOST possible.

First up — we rely on Meet.Coop for our videoconferencing needs with Big Blue Button. Donate to this co-op alternative to Zoom >> https://opencollective.com/meet-coop/donate

As an open source project ourselves, we recognize the immense amount of hidden labour that goes into public-benefit projects.

It’s crucial for free + open source tech projects to be mutually supportive of each other — this is the basis for a healthy digital commons. 🕸️ 💗

"Published in the midst of climate catastrophe, and on the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project acknowledges that we cannot separate slavery and settler colonialism from their contemporary consequences.

So, I envision the commons as a social process where people share resources, decide how to govern themselves and those resources, and exist in common with the land and other-than human beings."
https://www.atm-magazine.com/online/plotting-liberation/

This project is so freaking cool >>

"Solar Protocol is a website hosted across network of solar-powered servers, stewarded by volunteers across the world. The website is served from whichever server is enjoying the most sunshine." 🌞 http://solarprotocol.net/

Our Issue 01 release event is in ~1 hr. Still not too late to register!

https://opencollective.com/compost/events/compost-issue-01-release-party-ecbefdad

Hang out with the COMPOST crew tomorrow -- 11 am PT / 2pm ET / 18 UTC. We’ll hear a few short readings from Issue 01, do some Q&A, then share stories about when the web felt magical to us.

Come by, it'll be super laid back.
https://opencollective.com/compost/events/compost-issue-01-release-party-ecbefdad

"The resulting monocrop condition of our network infrastructures do not provide an easy ground for peer-to-peer technologies to flourish.

Peer-to-peer protocol biodiversity is dosed with weed killer, while the client-server monocrop is fertilized." https://one.compost.digital/seeding-the-wild/

Have you had experiences on the web that bring you hope?

We'd love to hear more stories of connection and becoming on the web, and other anecdotes that resonate with our first issue.

To share them at our release party, sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/210796867779177

We're having our Issue 01 Release Party this weekend!

We'll have readings and Q&A with authors, as well as an open-mic-style storytelling session about how we've found connection and becoming on the web.

Sat March 27 2pm ET/18 UTC. More details + registration:
https://opencollective.com/compost/events/compost-issue-01-release-party-ecbefdad

Our small three-person team has been building this project for the past 1.5 years.

We tried to apply what we've learned from the digital rights, copyleft, FOSS, community network, and commoning spaces we have experience in, and apply those lessons to build new digital tools and creative works rooted in solidarity and equity. 🍄 https://one.compost.digital/foreword/

In the Salt of the Cosmos, Tal Milovina frolicks through lithium powered spaces unraveling a regime intent on determining normality and value.

It’s a powerful piece examining values of progress and stability, across geopolitics to mental health. https://one.compost.digital/the-salt-of-the-cosmos/

What are intimate datasets? Instead of being anonymized and sanitized, intimate data can retain its sense of history and authorship.

Read AC Gillette on the poetics, ethics, and value of intimate data. https://one.compost.digital/you-are-a-strange-animal/

We give so much of ourselves online, and yet all of our data is held by data centers to be cut up and commodified.

What would it be like to own our networks, to make sacred the servers that hold our data? https://one.compost.digital/sacred-servers/