PolicyKit

A tool for building and evolving governance in online communities.

Active

USA

Open source: Yes

Consider the platforms you use for online communities today. These platforms only offer governance options that are top-down, autocratic, and punitive, involving admins and mods. But what if platforms could provide other types of governance, such as more democratic ones? What if communities could build for themselves the governance that suits their needs and values? PolicyKit empowers online community members to concisely author a wide range of governance procedures and automatically carry out those procedures on their home platforms. Inspired by Nobel economist Elinor Ostrom, we've developed a framework that describes governance as a series of actions and policies, written in short programming scripts. We're now building out an editor, software libraries, and connectors to platforms like Slack, Reddit, and Discord for communities to author actions and policies.