I've been inspired by
COMPOST magazine.
Instead of writing a publication that's about such and such going on in Wintreath, I thought it'd be cool to do one that takes a more personal and deeper dive into what Wintreath is as a community and who the people in it are. Unlike all past editions, it wouldn't be written with NSGP in mind or to just promote events...each issue would be a collective voice...reflective, thoughtful, and perhaps quirky, cute, weird, out there, sobering, funny, and whatever else depending on the unique mix of people who wanted to contribute to each issue. There might be articles directly about Wintreath, serious reflections...but there might also be lighter stuff like pictures and descriptions of what people in Wintreath are cooking, or about someone's interest in stand-up comedy. Each issue would be whatever its authors made it to be.
But it would be something done for fun and not as an obligation. Issues would happen irregularly as we had enough articles to publish.
I'm also inspired by COMPOST's layout...a clean and easy-to-read layout that lets you click through to any article you want to read right from the index. I wouldn't mind doing something similar on-site...perhaps a dedicated sub-site. I think it'd make for a better read than trying to cram everything into NS dispatches or a forum topic.
Any thoughts on this?
I was also inspired to write a potential foreword for a first edition:
FOREWORD
Thank you for checking out our very first issue of [---]!
[---] aims to be a different kind of magazine than the dispatches and publications that our community has put out in the past. It's aim isn't to simply inform about topics and events in Wintreath, but to reflect on what Wintreath is...about who we are as a community and a collective. As friends and as family. As the individuals who make up those things. And as the online home that we all live in together. This is us.
As such, this publication is not written by a roleplay government or by any individual, but as a group of volunteers in our community who have both the interest and the time to contribute to each issue. These days Wintreath is something we do for fun and for the joy of being with our friends. Nobody should take on something in our community as a duty or a job, and that includes writing articles.
Because of that, [---] will not be be chained to any timetable, but will come out when there are enough articles to put together in an issue. This is a magazine that will move at its own pace. What it lacks in quantity will hopefully be made up for in quality, because we will be focused on communicating our thoughts and perspectives and not on shoveling content to meet an arbitrary deadline.
This first edition, On Home, reflects our thoughts on Wintreath as the home whose virtual roof we all live together in under. That's not to say that all articles will reflect that theme, because authors shouldn't be forced to write about a topic they aren't feeling. But that just means there'll be a mix of thoughts and ideas, so most everyone might find at least one thing that was neat to read.
As we get started, thank you to everyone who put time and care into each article...for sharing your unique views and perspectives on different aspects of who we are and making our collective voice stronger in the process. And thank you to our readers (this includes you!), who were intrigued enough to be reading these words. If you enjoyed this issue, please let us know! We don't expect to ever be hugely popular, but it's always nice to know that somebody enjoyed reading.
Thanks again, and on with the show!
