Govbase is an open, crowdsourced database that catalogs projects, tools, and research in online governance. Maintained by Metagov, an interdisciplinary research collective focused on digital self-governance, Govbase serves as a comprehensive warehouse of qualitative and quantitative data about governance experiments, platforms, and organizational practices across online communities.
The database is hosted on Airtable as a series of linked data tables with curated views, making it accessible to developers, researchers, and practitioners seeking to understand the landscape of online governance tools and approaches. Govbase includes various data collections, such as a Cases table that catalogs significant events in the history of online governance, ranging from foundational moments like the original "rape in cyberspace" in 1993 to more recent events like the DAO hack in 2016.
A core mission of Govbase is to foster greater interoperability between the many tools and platforms available to online communities. By systematically documenting governance solutions and their real-world applications, Govbase enables researchers and practitioners to identify patterns, learn from governance experiments, and design more effective digital governance systems. The database supports both internal Metagov projects and external collaborations with organizations working on governance challenges.