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The Provenance Internet: Rediscovery, Artifact Trails, and Recoverable Social Objects

Zenodo record: 201960252 PDF pages343 extracted wordsDOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20196025

Abstract (extracted)

The Provenance Internet proposes a shift away from feed-based social systems toward rediscovery-oriented interaction systems centered around artifacts, trails, buried objects, and recoverable social memory. In feed-based internet systems, value is primarily attached to novelty, immediacy, and visibility. AI-generated media accelerates this process by making content production nearly infinite. The Provenance Internet reframes value around provenance rather than publication. The central question becomes: “Where did this come from, who carried it, how did it survive, and why does it continue to reappear?” Core Principle Artifact → Bury → Dig → Rebury → Trail The provenance model treats internet objects as persistent recoverable entities rather than disposable feed units. Canonical Vocabulary • Artifact — A recoverable social object with contextual history. • Provenance — The history and rediscovery path of an object. • Digging — Searching for buried or hidden artifacts. • Re-Dug — An artifact rediscovered by another user. • Trail — The movement history of an object. • Deep Dug — A long-

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PDF page 1

The Provenance Internet

Rediscovery, Artifact Trails, and Recoverable Social Objects

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20196025 Status: Conceptual proposal for provenance-based social interaction systems. Related Systems: OldDug, The Brown Web, Brown Hyperlinks / Burylinks.

Abstract

The Provenance Internet proposes a shift away from feed-based social systems toward rediscovery-oriented interaction systems centered around artifacts, trails, buried objects, and recoverable social memory. In feed-based internet systems, value is primarily attached to novelty, immediacy, and visibility. AI-generated media accelerates this process by making content production nearly infinite. The Provenance Internet reframes value around provenance rather than publication. The central question becomes: “Where did this come from, who carried it, how did it survive, and why does it continue to reappear?”

Core Principle

Artifact → Bury → Dig → Rebury → Trail The provenance model treats internet objects as persistent recoverable entities rather than disposable feed units.

Canonical Vocabulary

• Artifact — A recoverable social object with contextual history. • Provenance — The history and rediscovery path of an object. • Digging — Searching for buried or hidden artifacts. • Re-Dug — An artifact rediscovered by another user. • Trail — The movement history of an object. • Deep Dug — A long-buried rediscovered artifact. • Fresh Dug — A newly discovered artifact. • Brown Hyperlink / Burylink — A recoverable hyperlink requiring excavation before reveal.

Feed Internet Provenance Internet

Scrolling Digging

Post Artifact

Timeline Trail

Immediate exposure Recoverable discovery

Novelty Rediscovery

Disposable content Persistent objects

OldDug

OldDug is proposed as a provenance-native social runtime centered around rediscovery, artifact sediment, buried social objects, and recoverable internet memory. The platform introduces a social grammar centered around terms such as: OldDug, dug, re-dug, deep dug, fresh dug, artifact trails, and buried objects.

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AI and Provenance

AI-generated content increases the importance of provenance systems. When generation becomes abundant, social value shifts away from raw creation toward rediscovery, contextual history, rarity, trail formation, and human carrying.

Conclusion

The Provenance Internet reframes internet interaction from publication toward rediscovery. “The web had surfing. It never had digging.”