How do we run online communities? The growing field of online governance answers this question using a range of tools: voting algorithms, social media platforms, community management software, (crypto)economic designs, and even real-world laws. But just what tools are out there, who’s building them, and who’s using them? In this article, we introduce Govbase, an open, crowdsourced database of projects and tools in online governance, and discuss how we’re using it to foster more interoperability between the many tools and platforms available to online communities.
